Fluor Corporation was awarded a second task order worth as much as $831 million under its contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Huntsville (Alabama) Engineering Center to help with the restoration and rebuilding of transmission and distribution lines in Puerto Rico.

The competitively awarded contract includes evaluation, restoration, repair and replacement of structures and equipment supporting the island's electrical infrastructure.

The three-month single award task order is funded at $495 million with a ceiling of $831 million and is the second awarded to Fluor for power restoration work in Puerto Rico.

A previous task order for $240 million was awarded on Oct. 16, with an additional $261 million added to the original task order on December 4. Both task orders represent work assigned to the Corps under a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mission. They were both competitively bid and awarded to Fluor under a Basic Ordering Agreement contract.

Meanwhile, Whitefish Energy says it has completed its work related to transmission line and electrical grid repairs. Whitefish Energy’s work was primarily focused on 230kV transmission lines.

Whitefish was hired by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) within days of Hurricane Maria, which largely destroyed the island's electric infrastructure in September. The no-bid contract was worth $300 million. Questions arose over Whitefish’s qualifications and PREPA moved to cancel the contract.

A focal point of the controversy, Ricardo L. Ramos, PREPA’s CEO, resigned in mid-November. He was replaced by Justo Gonzalez as interim PREPA director. And former ConEd executive Carlos Torres was named as the “single point of contact” for efforts to rebuild the electric grid.

Over the course of two months, Whitefish says it brought more than 550 crew members and 600 pieces of heavy equipment to the island.

Whitefish says its scope of completed work included the following sections of the electrical grid on Puerto Rico:

• Restoration of the 50900 230kV line from Complejo de Aguirre to Aguas Buenas (and portions of the 51000 230kV line that runs parallel)

• Restoration of the 50100 230kV line from Cambalache to Manatí

• Restoration of the 50200 230kV line from Manatí to Bayamón

• Restoration of the 37400 115kV line from Manatí to Barceloneta

• Restoration of the 36200 115kV line from Villa Betini to Quebrada Negrito

• Restoration of the 3000 38kV line from San Juan to Juntos

Over the length of some 200 miles of repair work, Whitefish says its teams replaced nearly 50 towers, replaced nearly 120 poles and completed corrective action on another 200 other transmission structures.