An Introduction to Halliburton

Halliburton is one of the largest oilfield service companies in the world, having established operations in numerous countries. The company has headquarters in Houston, Texas (the United States) and Dubai (the United Arab Emirates). Worldwide, Halliburton has hundreds of affiliates and subsidiaries where it employs thousands of people.

The company was founded in 1919 and has since become one of the largest providers of services and products to the energy industry. Its history reveals a firm focused on innovation and expansion, two values that were extensively championed by founder Erle P. Halliburton. With a borrowed wagon, a pump and some mules, he built a mixing box and began an oil well cementing business in Oklahoma.

Erle Halliburton created the company's first research laboratories in the 1930s to test cement mixes and provide acidising services to be used in the oil and gas production process. The company undertook the first offshore cementing job at a rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which would mark the start of the firm's growth as an offshore service company.

In 1926, Halliburton (the company) started selling cementing units, first to an English firm based in
Burma, in what would kick-start its operations in the Eastern Hemisphere. The founder then sent his siblings to begin operations in Canada. In 1940, the company had a presence in Venezuela, and by 1946, it had established a presence in various South American countries (Ecuador, Colombia and Peru) and the Middle East. It was also at this time that Halliburton began servicing the Arabian-American Oil Company, which would later become Saudi Aramco.

In the early 1950s, Halliburton began operations in Europe, specifically in Italy. Over the next several years, the firm would establish itself in Germany, Argentina and England. In the mid-1980s, Halliburton had made inroads into China by providing equipment for a multi-well platform. In 1986, it became the first American company to undertake oilfield service work in China. The 1990s only brought more changes and growth to the firm, a time that also saw the establishment of a branch in Moscow, Russia.

Working in the Oil and Gas Industry 

The Business

Over the years, Halliburton has expanded its product offerings to serve a multitude of clients. The firm has 14 product service lines (PSLs) that fall under two main divisions: Completion and Production, and Drilling and Evaluation. There is also a Consulting and Project Management PSL that provides support to both divisions.

The PSLs under Drilling and Evaluation Division include Baroid, Drill Bits & Services, Landmark, Sperry Drilling, Testing & Subsea, and Wireline & Perforating. The PSLs under the Completion and Production Division are Artificial Lift, Cementing, Completion Tools, Multi-Chem, Pipeline & Pipeline Services, Production Enhancement, and Production Solutions.

Through these PSLs, Halliburton engages with numerous other partner companies to provide services. One of these is Nobel Upstream, an independent exploration and production oil and gas company that was incorporated in the UK. Nobel makes use of Halliburton's cementing, logging and fracking/completion services in an oil and gas development project in the Mitchell and Scurry counties of West Texas. Nobel Upstream has successfully drilled five production wells and plans to continue working closely with Halliburton on future engagements.

Halliburton's Journey to ZERO

Social Responsibility

As part of its social responsibility, Halliburton has placed environment, health, safety and service quality as core values to push for. The company's objective is to exceed the expectations of its internal standards and those of the customers and regulators it interacts with. Beyond complying with rules, Halliburton is also committed to improving its business across all of these areas, mainly through engaging its leadership, implementing a reliable management system, and developing the competencies of its employees.