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Halliburton Co. is an American oil-field services company that operates worldwide and is a global leader in the upstream oil industry (petroleum exploration and production). Long associated with engineering and construction through earlier subsidiaries, the company is best known for supplying specialized services to oil and gas producers. Halliburton has corporate offices in Houston, Texas, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Origin and growth
Halliburton was founded in 1919 by Erle P. Halliburton, an engineer who developed improved methods for sealing oil wells with cement, a process critical to safe and efficient drilling. Drawing on techniques he had learned while working in the oil-field services industry in California, Halliburton established the New Method Oil Well Cementing Co. in Burkburnett, Texas, following the discovery of oil there in 1918.
In 1920, the company was renamed Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. (HOWCO) and soon established its headquarters in Duncan, Oklahoma. Erle Halliburton patented a number of innovations in oil-well cementing, including the jet mixer, a truck-mounted device used to combine water and cement at drilling sites. As the American petroleum industry expanded, these technologies made HOWCO an increasingly important supplier to oil producers.
In need of additional capital to finance expansion, Halliburton incorporated his company in 1924 and brought in several large petroleum businesses as joint owners. (HOWCO didnât offer its stock to the public until 1948.)
Expansion, diversification, and international operations
The company made its first overseas sales in 1926, when it sold cementing units to an English firm for use in Burma (now Myanmar). In the 1930s, HOWCO opened research laboratories and increased the range of services it provided.
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.
What is hydraulic fracturing?
Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is a technique used to extract oil and natural gas from dense underground rock formations by injecting water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure to create fractures that allow hydrocarbons to flow. Fracking became commercially important after World War II, and in 1949, Halliburton acquired an exclusive license to use a newly developed method, helping establish the technique as a commercially viable oil-field service. Fracking later played a central role in the development of shale oil and gas resources and became a subject of environmental and regulatory debate.
It established a presence on the West Coast in 1940 by purchasing Perkins Oil Well Cementing, the company where Erle Halliburton had once worked. HOWCO opened its first South American office, in Venezuela, in the same year and its first European office, in Italy, in 1951.
In 1949, the company acquired an exclusive license to practice hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting oil and gas from underground rock formations, which later became an important source of revenue for HOWCO.
Erle P. Halliburton died in October 1957, by which time his company had 20,000 employees.
In 1959, HOWCO acquired Otis Engineering, another company active in oil-field equipment and services. The following year HOWCO shortened its name to Halliburton Co. to reflect the expanded scope of its operations.
The company moved its headquarters to Dallas in 1961.
A major expansion and diversification came with acquisition of Brown & Root, Inc., a Texas-based engineering and construction company, in 1962. Engineering and construction became a significant part of Halliburtonâs business.
Cheney, KBR, and Deepwater Horizon
Dick Cheney, who served as U.S. secretary of defense in the administration of George H.W. Bush (1989â93), became chairman and chief executive of Halliburton Co. in 1995. He continued the program of expansion by acquisition.
Cheneyâs most notable purchase was Dresser Industries, formerly a major competitor, in 1998. In previous decades a Dresser unit had done extensive work with asbestos, leaving Halliburton with heavy liability for asbestos-related health issues.
What was KBR?
KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, was an engineering and construction company that became part of Halliburton through its acquisition of Brown & Root in 1962 and the later integration of the engineering firm M.W. Kellogg. Unlike Halliburtonâs core oil-field services business, KBR focused on large-scale engineering, infrastructure, and government contracting, including major projects for the U.S. military in the early 21st century. In 2006, Halliburton spun off KBR as an independent company, a move that marked a strategic refocusing on oil-field services.
In 2002, the company agreed to pay roughly $5 billion in cash and stock to settle all claims. Dresserâs M.W. Kellogg engineering subsidiary was combined with Brown & Root to form Halliburtonâs Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) division.
Cheney left Halliburton in 2000 to join the George W. Bush presidential campaign, and he then served as vice president in the Bush administration (2001â09). During Bushâs first term, U.S.-led forces embarked on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Halliburton, principally through its KBR subsidiary, received bigger U.S. government reconstruction contracts than any other company for work in the two countries. Many of the contracts were awarded without competitive bidding. Critics charged favoritism at the time, and KBR was later accused of mismanagement. In 2006, Halliburton spun off KBR into a separate corporation.
Halliburton relocated its headquarters from Dallas to Houston in 2003.
Four years later David J. Lesar, chair and CEO, moved his office to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Lesar said that the Eastern Hemisphere had become the companyâs most important market, but some critics called it a tax-avoidance maneuver. In response, the company said that it had one corporate office in Dubai and another in Houston.
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Fireboat response crews attempt to extinguish the blaze aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, April 21, 2010.
U.S. Coast Guard
Halliburton received more unwanted attention in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
On April 20, 2010, a surge of gas tore through a concrete core Halliburton had recently installed in BPâs Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. The gas ignited, killing 11 workers on the platform, and the riser (vertical pipe) ruptured, spilling several million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
In 2013, the company agreed to pay a $200,000 penalty after pleading guilty to criminal charges that its employees had destroyed evidence. The following year a civil court found Halliburton negligent and apportioned its liability of the disaster at 3%. The company settled claims with plaintiffs for some $1.1 billion.
Operations and global role in the 21st century
In the years following the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the 2006 spin-off of Kellogg Brown & Root, Halliburton refocused on its core oil-field services business. By the early 21st century the company had reestablished itself as one of the worldâs leading providers of upstream services, supplying technologies and expertise used in drilling, well construction, reservoir evaluation, and oil and gas production.
Halliburtonâs operations became increasingly international as growth in U.S. drilling activity fluctuated and national oil companies expanded investment in long-term projects abroad. The company built a strong presence in the Middle East, Latin America, and parts of Asia, supplying services for both conventional oil fields and complex offshore and unconventional developments.
Halliburton conducted oil-field services work in Venezuela for decades following the opening of its first South American office in 1940, but U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector led the company to wind down most of its activity there by the early 2020s. In late 2025, the company lodged an international arbitration claim against Venezuela for damages it attributed to the cessation of its activities there.
By the 2020s, Halliburton operated in a global oil and gas industry shaped by consolidation among producers, more restrained spending, and greater emphasis on managing costs and capacity. Although demand for oil-field services remained cyclical, Halliburton continued to play a central role in petroleum exploration and production worldwide, reflecting its long-standing position as a key supplier to the upstream energy sector.
