Halliburton history

In 1920 New Method became Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. (HOWCO), and it soon established headquarters in Duncan, Oklahoma.

On March 1, 1921, the Halliburton "method and means of excluding water from oil wells" was assigned a patent from the United States Patent Office.

By 1922, the Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company (HOWCO) was prospering from the Mexia, Texas oil boom, having cemented its 500th well in late summer.

In 1924, the Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company became a corporation in Delaware.

1926: Halliburton took its first steps to become a worldwide company by selling five cementing units to an English company in Burma, which started its Eastern Hemisphere operations.

By the time the company reached its ten-year milestone in 1929, research and development had improved processes and equipment to the point where a mixture made up of 2,500 sacks of cement could be injected into a well in 48 minutes.

In 1932, it opened four new branches, enabling it to send 75 cementing and well-testing crews to sites in seven states.

The company deployed a barge-mounted cementing rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 1938, thus establishing itself in offshore services, which eventually became a major segment of the petroleum industry.

1946: The company expanded into Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the Middle East and began performing services for the Arabian-American Oil Company, the forerunner of Saudi Aramco.

In 1947, the Halliburton first marine cementing vessel went into service.

In 1948 Halliburton shares were offered on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time.

In 1949 the company acquired an exclusive license to practice hydraulic fracturing, a newly invented technique for releasing hitherto inaccessible oil and gas deposits from underground rock formations.

In 1951, Halliburton made its first appearance in Europe as Halliburton Italiana SpA., a wholly owned subsidiary in Italy.

Halliburton revenues topped $100 million for the first time in 1952.

All of this was reflected in the annual sales figures, which reached $152.4 million by the end of 1955, and produced net profits of $16.3 million.

Costing $3 million in 1956 alone, it rewarded the company’s efforts with a new composition for cementing deep wells and a method for making the fracturing sand radioactive, among other innovations.

Erie Halliburton died in 1957, after 28 years as company president and 10 as chairman.

J. Evetts Haley, Erle P. Halliburton: Genius with Cement (Duncan, Okla.: Privately printed, 1959).

On July 5, 1961, the company changed its name to the Halliburton Company.

Acquiring Brown & Root in 1962

In 1963, Halliburton was the first company in Oklahoma to receive the Presidential "E" for Export flag in recognition of notable contributions to foreign trade.

Halliburton opened a 500,000 sq ft (46,000 m) manufacturing center in Duncan, Oklahoma, in 1964.

By 1965 Halliburton's acquisitions program resulted in 16 units that were autonomous but closely coordinated into three main areas.

In 1966, workers broke ground for a new wing at the Research Center in Duncan that tripled the available space for the Chemical Research and Design Department.

In 1968, an automated mixing system for drilling mud was developed by Halliburton, primarily for use offshore.

In 1969, Halliburton began construction of a base camp at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope.

Dubai, also spelled Dubayy, city and capital of the emirate of Dubai, one of the wealthiest of the seven emirates that constitute the federation of the United Arab Emirates, which was created in 1971 following independence from Great Britain.

The exception was Ebasco Services, acquired along with Vernon Graphics from Boise Cascade in 1973.

In 1975, it responded to environmental concerns by working with the nonprofit Clean Gulf Associates to contain and clean up oil spills.

In 1976, Brown & Root and Raymond International, a competitor, teamed up in a $22 million bridge construction project in Louisiana.

Beginning in June 1979, price controls were to be phased out over 28 months, although they were replaced with a windfall-profits excise tax to keep prices high, a method of encouraging oil conservation.

Kenny A. Franks, The Oklahoma Petroleum Industry (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980).

In 1982, an economic recession plus sharply lower oil prices began to affect the oil exploration industry and its suppliers.

The company's billionth sack of cement for customers was pumped in 1983.

1984: Halliburton provided all well completion equipment for the first offhshore multiwell platform in China.

A lawsuit alleging that Brown & Root had mismanaged a south Texas nuclear power plant construction project cost a 1985 settlement of $750 million, producing a $340 million loss for the year.

1986: Halliburton became the first American company to perform an oilfield services in mainland China.

In 1989 its total revenues, showing assets of $4.2 billion, were $5.66 billion.

Following the end of Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, the Pentagon, led by then defense secretary Dick Cheney, paid Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root Services over $8.5 million to study the use of private military forces with American soldiers in combat zones.

A special charge of $264.6 million was recorded in 1992 for the first stages of the restructuring, which included the elimination of 3,000 jobs, including 26 vice-president slots.

The only major acquisition of this period came in March 1993 when Smith International, Inc.’s Directional Drilling Systems and Services business was added for about $247 million in stock.

Cheney inherited a much leaner and more profitable company thanks to the Cruikshank-led restructuring (net income was $178 million in 1994), and quickly launched another round of acquisitions, perhaps the most ambitious in company history.

In late 1995 Dick Cheney, who had served as United States Secretary of Defense under President George Bush, was named chairman, CEO, and president of Halliburton, taking over the helm from the retiring Cruikshank.

In October 1996 Halliburton acquired Landmark Graphics Corp. for about $550 million in stock.

The company faced challenges in the new millennium, however, due to lingering asbestos claims and an SEC investigation related to changes in accounting practices that occurred in 1998--when United States Vice-President Dick Cheney was company CEO.

Cheney resigned in 2000 to join running mate George W. Bush on the Republican ticket in the upcoming presidential election.

During 2001, a Baltimore jury awarded a group of plaintiffs $30 million, sending company stock to its lowest point in nine years.

In April 2002, KBR was awarded a $7 million contract to construct steel holding cells at Camp X-Ray.

Antosh, Nelson, “Houston-Based Halliburton Posts $602 Million Loss in Fourth Quarter,” Houston Chronicle, February 21, 2003.

On January 24, 2006, Halliburton's subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) announced that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build "temporary detention and processing facilities" or internment camps.

In February 2008, a hard disk and two computers containing classified information were stolen from Petrobras while in Halliburton's custody.

2009: For first time, the number of horizontal wells drilled exceeded the number of vertical wells drilled as operators increase focus on unconventional basins.

2010: Landmark Software and Services releases DecisionSpace® Desktop technology.

2011: Halliburton deploys first series of Q10™ pumps.

2012: The Company expanded its operations in key unconventional markets including Australia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and China.

2013: Halliburton opened Completion Technology and Manufacturing Center in Singapore.

On November 17, 2014, Halliburton and Baker Hughes jointly announced a definitive agreement under which Halliburton will, subject to the conditions set forth in the agreement, acquire Baker Hughes in a stock and cash transaction valued at $34.6 billion.

2015: Halliburton introduced next-gen acoustic evaluation service – Xaminer℠ Sonic Service.

The merger had a deadline of the end of April 2016 after which, if a decision had not been made, both companies could walk away from the deal if they chose.

2017: The Company added to its Drilling and Evaluation technology offering through the acquisition of Ingrain.

2018: Halliburton releases Illusion® Spire - the first fluid efficient dissolvable frac plug.

2019: Halliburton celebrated 100 years of service.

2020: The Company introduced SmartFleet™, the first intelligent automated fracturing system.