diff --git a/projects/re2/Dockerfile b/projects/re2/Dockerfile
index b0aee104b..0e29abdb0 100644
--- a/projects/re2/Dockerfile
+++ b/projects/re2/Dockerfile
@@ -15,14 +15,11 @@
 ################################################################################
 
 FROM gcr.io/oss-fuzz-base/base-builder
-RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y make autoconf automake libtool \
-	cmake pkg-config
+RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y cmake make pkg-config
 
-# At the time of writing, OSS-Fuzz uses Ubuntu focal (20.04 LTS), but
-# libabsl-dev isn't available until Ubuntu jammy (22.04 LTS), so build
-# and install Abseil from source.
+# https://github.com/abseil/abseil-cpp/issues/1524#issuecomment-1739364093
+# explains why Abseil must be built for fuzzing, not depended on normally.
 RUN git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/abseil/abseil-cpp
-
 RUN git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/google/re2
 
 COPY build.sh $SRC/
diff --git a/projects/re2/build.sh b/projects/re2/build.sh
index 33c84b400..d362b2043 100755
--- a/projects/re2/build.sh
+++ b/projects/re2/build.sh
@@ -15,11 +15,15 @@
 #
 ################################################################################
 
+CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS -O2"
+
 # First, build and install Abseil.
-# N.B., this is pasted verbatim from what libphonenumber does here.
+# https://github.com/abseil/abseil-cpp/issues/1524#issuecomment-1739364093
+# explains why Abseil must be built for fuzzing, not depended on normally.
+# N.B., this is pasted almost verbatim from what libphonenumber does here.
 cd $SRC/abseil-cpp
 mkdir build && cd build
-cmake -DCMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE=ON ../  && make && make install
+cmake -DCMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE=ON .. && make -j$(nproc) && make install
 ldconfig
 
 # Second, build and install RE2.
@@ -34,9 +38,7 @@ ldconfig
 # interrogate pkg-config about the Abseil dependencies instead of
 # maintaining yet another enumeration of them here.
 cd $SRC/re2
-CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS -O2"
-make -j$(nproc) obj/libre2.a
-make common-install
+make -j$(nproc) obj/libre2.a && make common-install
 
 # Third, build the fuzzer (distributed with RE2).
 $CXX $CXXFLAGS -I. \