Halliburton

Halliburton Energy Services is a multinational corporation based in Dallas, Texas, in the United States. Founded in 1919, the company's primary focus is in the energy and petroleum industries, although it has many diverse subsidiaries which operate in other areas.

In the early 1990s Halliburton was found to be in violation of federal trade barriers in Iraq and Libya, having sold these countries dual-use oil drilling equipment and, through its former subsidiary, Halliburton Logging Services, sending six pulse neutron generators to Libya. After having pleaded guilty, the company was fined $1.2 million, with another $2.61 million in penalties.

In April 2002, a Halliburton subsidary, Kellog, Brown and Root[?] (KBR), was awarded a $7 million contract to construct steel holding cells at Camp X-Ray. More recently, the subsidiary was awarded a no-bid contract[?] to conduct oil well firefighting in Iraq worth an estimated $1 billion. In May 2003, Halliburton's role under contract with regard to Iraqi oilfields was expanded to include "operation of facilities and distribution of products". [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3006149.stm)

Also in May 2003, Halliburton revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its KBR subsidiary had paid a Nigerian official $2.4 million in bribes in order to receive favorable tax treatment. [2] (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/05/10/1052280472817) [3] (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/1902750)

The company is currently (2003) being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission due to allegations of profit inflation by accounting for cost overruns as revenue in shareholder reports. Halliburton counters that the practice was approved by its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, and conforms to generally accepted practices.

Halliburton's chairman and CEO is David J. Lesar, who took over the positions from Dick Cheney, now the U.S. Vice President. Cheney became chairman and CEO of Halliburton in 1995; he retired from the company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign, and was awarded a severance package worth $20 million.

External links

• Halliburton corporate website (http://www.halliburton.com/)
• A Halliburton Primer on WashingtonPost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/articles/halliburtonprimer)