Halliburton: Encyclopedia II - Halliburton - History

Halliburton - History

Halliburton - 1919 to 1990

Mr. and Mrs. Erle P. Halliburton first tried to find work cementing oil wells in Burkburnett, Texas then moved their business (New Method Oil Well Cementing Company) to the Healdton field near Ardmore, Oklahoma.

• 1920: reorganized - Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company
• 1921: headquarters - Duncan, Oklahoma
• 1924: incorporation
• 1948: New York Stock Exchange listing
• 1957: acquisition of Welex Jet Services of Fort Worth, Texas
• 1960: name shortened to Halliburton Company
• 1961: headquarters - Dallas, Texas
• 1962: acquisition of Brown and Root of Houston, Texas
• 198?: acquisition of Geosource
• 1982: workforce - 115,000
• 1982: energy industry decline
• 1988: acquisition of Geophysical Service Incorporated from Texas Instruments
• 1988: Halliburton Logging Services
• 1991: workforce - 73,000

Halliburton - 1990s

• In the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait in 1991, Halliburton crews helped bring 320 burning oil wells under control.
• In the early 1990s Halliburton was found to be in violation of federal trade barriers in Iraq and Libya, having sold these countries dual-use oil drilling equipment and, through its former subsidiary, Halliburton Logging Services, sending six pulse neutron generators to Libya. After having pleaded guilty, the company was fined $1.2 million, with another $2.61 million in penalties.
• In the Balkans conflict in the 1990s, KBR supported U.S. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Hungary with food, laundry, transportation and other lifecycle management services.
• In 1995 Dick Cheney became chairman and CEO
• In 1998 Halliburton merged with Dresser Industries, which included Kellogg.

Halliburton - 2000s

• On 10 April 2001 the Dresser division (excluding the former Kellogg division) entered an agreement to separate itself once again from Halliburton by management purchasing its equity, the new company to be called Dresser Inc.

• In 2001 it was reported by The Wall Street Journal that a subsidiary of Halliburton Energy Services called Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. opened an office in Tehran. The company, HPS, operated "behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block." Although HPS was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in 1975 and is "non-American", it shares both the logo and name of Halliburton Energy Services and, according to Dow Jones Newswires offers services from Halliburton units world-wide through its Tehran office. Such behaviour, undertaken while Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, may have violated the Trading with the Enemy Act. A Halliburton spokesman, responding to inquiries from Dow Jones, said "This is not breaking any laws. This is a foreign subsidiary and no US person is involved in this. No US person is facilitating any transaction. We are not performing directly in that country." No legal action has been taken against the company or its officials.

• In 2002, Judicial Watch, a public action lawfirm, filed suit on behalf of shareholders against Halliburton, its current and former directors, and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen LLP and Arthur Andersen Worldwide, for alleged accounting irregularities, said to be profit inflation by accounting for cost overruns as revenue. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigated the same issue. Halliburton counters that the practice was approved by its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, and conforms to generally accepted accounting practices. In August, 2004, Halliburton paid a $7.5 million fine to settle the issue.

• In April 2002, KBR was awarded a $7 million contract to construct steel holding cells at Camp X-Ray. More recently, the subsidiary was awarded a no-bid contract to conduct oil well firefighting in Iraq worth an estimated $1 billion. In May 2003, Halliburton's role under contract with regard to Iraqi oilfields was expanded to include "operation of facilities and distribution of products". [1]

• In May 2003, Halliburton revealed in SEC filings that its KBR subsidiary had paid a Nigerian official $2.4 million in bribes in order to receive favorable tax treatment. [2] [3]

• As of 2003, Halliburton was still operating in Iran. CNN, in a report entitled "US companies are operating in Iran despite sanctions," reported that a Halliburton spokesperson told the news agency that HPS helps Iran build oil rigs in the country's south.

• In September 2005, under a competitive bid contract last it won in July of 2005, to provide debris removal and other emergency work associated with natural disasters, KBR started assessment of the cleanup and reconstruction of Gulf Coast U.S. Marine and U.S. Navy facilities that were damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The facilities include: Naval Air Station Pascagoula, Naval Station Gulfport, Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, two smaller U.S. Navy facilities in New Orleans and others in the Gulf Coast region. KBR has had similar contracts for more than 15 years.

Today KBR employs over 30,000 men and women in Iraq. Halliburton's work in Iraq is diverse and complicated. In addition to troop support, Halliburton also provides air traffic control support; produces 74 million gallons of water a month for consumption, hygiene and laundry; deploys as many as 700 trucks a day to deliver essentials to American forces; and provides firefighter and crash-rescue services, as well as working to restore Iraqi oil infrastructure.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki