Halliburton Energy Services (NYSE: HAL) is a multinational corporation with operations in over 120 countries, and is based in Houston, Texas.

Halliburton operates two major business segments: The Energy Services Group provides technical products and services for oil and gas exploration and production, and their KBR subsidiary is a major construction company of refineries, oil fields, pipelines, and chemical plants. Their 2005 revenues were $20.99 billion USD and they employ over 106,000 people worldwide.

Business Overview

Energy Services, the company's historical bedrock, includes: drilling & formation evaluation, digital & consulting solutions, production volume optimization, and fluid systems. This business continues to be profitable, and the company is a world leader in this industry; Schlumberger is the company's closest competitor.

With the acquisition of Dresser Industries in 1998, the Kellogg-Brown & Root division (in 2002 renamed to KBR) was formed by merging Halliburton's Brown & Root (acquired 1962) subsidiary and the M.W. Kellogg division of Dresser (which Dresser had merged with in 1988). KBR is a major international construction company, which is a highly volatile undertaking subject to wild fluctuations in revenue and profit. Asbestos-related litigation from the Kellogg acquisition caused the company to book over $4.0 billion U.S. in losses from 2002 through 2004.

As a result of the asbestos-related costs, Halliburton lost approximately $900 million U.S. a year from 2002 through 2004. A final non-appealable settlement in the asbestos case was reached in January 2005 which allowed Halliburton subsidiary KBR to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy and returned the company to quarterly profitability.

At a meeting for investors and analysts in August 2004, a plan was outlined to divest the KBR division through a possible sale, spin-off or initial public offering. Analysts at Deutsche Bank value KBR at up to $2.15 billion, while others believe it could be worth closer to $3 billion by 2005.

Corporate Governance

The current members of Halliburton's board of directors are David J. Lesar, C. Christopher Gaut, William P. Utt, Andrew R. Lane, Albert O. Cornelison, Mark A. McCollum, Craig Nunez, Lawrence J. Pope, and David R. Smith.