(FORTUNE Magazine) – After the last bombs have fallen and the shooting stops, the sounds of war in Kuwait will be replaced by the happier din of construction crews, belching tractors, and rumbling cement trucks. Military and civilian reconstruction planners estimate that the cost of rebuilding Kuwait could run as high as $60 billion, big business for companies lucky enough to land lucrative contracts. That possibility has sparked investor interest in a handful of U.S. contractors that are positioned to win a piece of the job. Companies that have already done work in Kuwait, especially in oil and gas, stand the best chance of grabbing a leading role. Kuwaiti officials say that oil production and refinery facilities will be the first to be repaired because they are the source of badly needed revenues from energy sales. There will be plenty of work to go around. Already more than 50 Kuwaiti oil wells are ablaze, the result of allied bombing and Iraqi sabotage, and Saddam Hussein has threatened to blow up the remaining wells if his army is attacked by allied ground forces. Kuwaitis are grateful to America for its role in the war and are promising to hand the lion's share of postwar construction work to U.S. firms. Says Fawzi al-Sultan, executive director of the World Bank, who is coordinating the reconstruction plan for his country: ''If we need to get spare parts for a facility that was built by the Japanese, for instance, we will have to go to the Japanese. But whenever we can buy something from an American company, we will do so.'' Al-Sultan expects that 80% of the initial work to will go to U.S. companies. The five companies listed above have all done major work in the Middle East, mainly in energy, and analysts say they will be top contenders for the big contracts. Fluor, a giant in the U.S. construction industry, says it is already discussing a potential deal with Kuwaiti officials. Dresser Industries in Dallas is also talking to Kuwait's exiled leaders. Dresser built chemical treatment and gas processing plants in Kuwait in the early Eighties, and it has since supplied an endless stream of high-tech valves and pumps to the sheikhdom's oil industry. Halliburton and Foster Wheeler have both worked on refineries in Kuwait, so analysts think they too will be in the running. Daniel Industries, a leading producer of oil and gas measuring devices, is already getting a boost from the conflict but stands to do even better once the war ends. Demand for its flow-measuring equipment has risen sharply as other Middle East countries rushed to raise oil output to offset the loss of supply from Iraq and Kuwait. Demand for its products will get another surge when Iraq and Kuwait try to bring their facilities back onstream.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: NO CREDIT CAPTION: REPAIRING THE DAMAGE These companies could reap big profits from contracts to rebuild crippled Kuwaiti oil facilities, such as this terminal, set ablaze in January.