Baker Hughes history

In December 1908, the partners had already formed the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company in Houston, Texas, to manufacture the bit in a rented space measuring 20 by 40 ft (12 m).

In 1909, Howard R. Hughes, Sr. introduced the first roller cutter bit that dramatically improved the rotary drilling process.

When Sharp died in 1912, Hughes bought Sharp's share of the business.

Baker licensed his patents and incorporated the Baker Casing Shoe Company in 1913, mainly to protect his numerous patents on products that would soon become the industry standard.

Hughes incorporated the business the following year, and in 1915 dropped Sharp's name from the company.

The 19-year-old Howard Hughes, Jr., inherited the company in 1924 following the death of his father.

In 1928, Baker Casing Shoe Company changed its name to Baker Oil Tools, Inc., to reflect its product line of completion, cementing and fishing equipment.

In 1929, H. John Eastman introduced "controlled directional drilling" in Huntington Beach, California, using whipstocks and magnetic survey instruments to deflect the drill pipe from shore-based rigs to reach oil deposits offshore.

In 1931, Max B. Miller devised a drilling mud using a white clay as a weighting material.

In 1934, Eastman Whipstock Inc. was founded by Eastman and Roman W. Hines, the same year the company drilled the world's first relief well to control a blowout in Conroe, Texas, that had been on fire for more than a year.

Meanwhile, in 1942, Oil Base Drilling Company was founded by George Miller, and made its first application of oil base mud.

Clark, who had joined the company as a recent mechanical-engineering graduate from the California Institute of Technology in 1947, led Baker, now based in Orange, California, to new heights.

In the 10 years after 1948 it opened 50 new offices in 16 states.

Exploration Logging Company (EXLOG) was founded in 1952 in Sacramento, California by Vern C. Jones, and had 800 employees.

In early 1956, during one of the most successful periods in the company's history, Baker retired as President of Baker Oil Tools and was succeeded by his long-time associate Ted Sutter.

In 1957, Frank Christensen's Christensen Diamond Products opened its manufacturing plant in Celle, Germany.

In 1959, Hughes introduced self-lubricating, sealed bearing rock bits.

Under Sutter the company began to expand globally, and it went public in 1961.

When E. H. "Hubie" Clark, Jr., assumed control of Baker in 1965, the company developed into a global powerhouse.

In 1970, Baker Oil Tools acquired Lynes, Inc., which produced liner hangers and other completion equipment.

In 1971, Baker Oil Tools acquired Milchem.

Howard Hughes, who himself founded Hughes Aircraft Company, purchased over 78 percent of TransWorld Airlines' stock, and held a substantial investment in RKO Pictures, remained the sole owner of Hughes Tool until 1972, when he put the company on the market.

Under the leadership of chairman James Lesch the firm purchased the Byron Jackson oil-field-equipment division of Borg-Warner in 1974, for $46 million.

Clark acquired some 20 companies, the largest of which was Reed Tool Company, a drill-bit manufacturer acquired in 1975.

Baker operations were begun in Peru, Nigeria, Libya, Iran, and Australia, among other countries, and in 1976 the company changed its name to Baker International Corporation.

In 1977, the Celle engineering and manufacturing team introduced the Navi-Drill line of downhole drilling motors, which has led the drilling industry in performance and reliability for three decades.

Hughes, of course, felt he was personally diversified, so he never really considered diversifying the tool company," Raymond Holliday, a former Hughes chairman, told Business Week, October 13, 1980.

By 1981--a peak year in the industry--new business activities, which largely meant non-drill-bit products and services, accounted for 55 percent of the company's sales.

When the bottom fell out of the market in 1982, Hughes found itself a bloated, overextended, and debt-ridden concern.

For the three years beginning in 1983, Hughes lost $200 million.

In 1984, Baker dismissed several of the top executives of Tri-State and replaced them with Baker executives from Houston, thus putting the project of moving Tri-State to Houston into action.

In 1985 Hughes had been awarded $122 million from Dresser Industries for patent violation.

In 1986 Hughes won a $227 million patent-infringement judgment from Smith International, a California concern that had copied Hughes's drill seal too closely.

Indeed, the United States Justice Department announced on January 25, 1987, that it would attempt to block the merger, citing reduced competition in markets for some oil-exploration machinery.

The company was already profitable by fiscal 1988.

In June 1989, Baker Hughes acquired Bird Machine Company for $47.5 million.

In 1991 Baker Hughes divested Baker Hughes Tubular Services and also spun off to the public its profitable but lawsuit-plagued BJ Services Inc. pumping service unit.

April 1992, Baker Hughes acquired Teleco Oilfield Services, a provider of directional measurement-while-drilling technology, from Sonat for $200 million cash, preferred stock and royalty from future sales of Teleco's "triple combo" sensors.

In 1993, Hughes Christensen introduced the AR-Series PDC bits, anti-whirl bits with increased penetration rates up to 100% in some applications and extended bit life as much as four-fold, compared to previous bit designs.

Divestments continued in 1994 with the sales of EnviroTech Pumpsystems to the Weir Group of Scotland for $210 million and of EnviroTech Measurements & Controls to Thermo Electron Corp. for $134 million.

By 1995, Hughes Christensen's Gold Series PDC line increased drilling efficiency by reducing the frictional forces that can accumulate in front of the cutting edge, reducing the energy required to remove the rock.

In 1996, patented ChipMaster PDCs, known for their efficiency and durability, were built on the success of the Eggbeater product line.

Introduced in 1997 with Agip S.p.A., the tool is fundamentally different compared to contemporary rivals such as the PowerDrive and the GeoPilot employing the hybrid technique of "pushing and pointing (vectoring) the bit" rather than only "pointing the bit" or only "pushing the bit".

On August 10, 1998, the company acquired Western Atlas for $5.5 billion in stock plus the assumption of $700 million in debt.

In 1999, the only new seismic technology that was being introduced was the 4-dimensional seismic survey monitoring.

In 2000, during a downturn in the petroleum industry, the company merged its Western Geophysical division with Schlumberger's Geco (Geophysical Company of Norway) to form WesternGeco.

In 2001, the company introduced the largest hydraulic fracturing proppants vessel for deepwater work in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2003, these product lines were spun off to form the separate entity of Baker Hughes Drilling Fluids (BHDF), with INTEQ continuing as the Drilling and Evaluation (D&E) company.

In February 2006, Baker Hughes acquired Nova Technology Corporation, an oil and gas data acquisition and monitoring service company.

In 2007, the Celle Technology Center became Baker Hughes' leading research and engineering facility in the Eastern Hemisphere.

On April 28, 2010, Baker Hughes acquired BJ Services.

In November 2014, the company entered talks with Halliburton over a merger deal valued at $34.6 billion.

On May 1, 2016, the companies terminated the merger agreement.

In July 2019, they set up a JV with Aramco to create a new non-metallic materials company called Novel Non-Metallic Solutions Manufacturing.

In 2020, Sterling Auxiliaries & Artek Surfin Chemicals have acquired Baker Hughes' Sand Springs facility.