Williams Companies
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| The Williams Companies, Inc. | |
 |
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| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Founded | Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1908 |
| Headquarters | Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA |
| Key people | Steven J. Malcolm, CEO |
| Industry | Energy marketing and trading Natural gas pipelines Energy services |
| Products | oil & natural gas |
| Revenue | $12.6 billion USD ( 92% FY 2005) |
| Employees | 3,913 |
| Slogan | A tradition America can count on. |
| Website | www.williams.com |
The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE: WMB) is an energy company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its core business is natural gas exploration, production, processing, and transportation, with additional petroleum and electricity generation assets. A Fortune 200 company, its common stock is a component of the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Utility Average.
[edit] History
It was founded as Williams Brothers in 1908 by Miller and David Williams in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and soon expanded to building nationwide pipelines for natural gas and petroleum. The company relocated to Tulsa in 1919.
The company went public in 1957 under the Williams Brothers name. As it diversified in the 1970s, it was renamed The Williams Companies, Inc. Since 1997, their brand identity has been simplified to "Williams".
In 1966, Williams bought the then-largest petroleum products pipeline in America, known as the Great Lakes Pipe Line Company, for about $287 million. In 1982, it expanded into natural gas transportation with the purchase of Northwest Energy Company, and extended their reach to the East Coast with the 1995 purchase of Transco Energy Company.
In 2001, Williams acquired Barrett Resources, which provided them with additional national gas reserves.
[edit] Telecommunications
The company helped to get the modern telecommunications industry off the ground by running fiber optic cable through its decommissioned pipelines. It built two nationwide networks which have since become their own companies; the first was sold in 1995 to LDDS (which would become WorldCom and then MCI) and the second was spun off in 2001 as Williams Communications (which would become WilTel Communications and later consolidate into Level 3).
[edit] External links
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Categories: Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Energy company stubs | Petroleum company stubs | Companies based in Oklahoma | Energy companies of the United States | Oil companies of the United States | Natural gas companies of the United States | Power companies of the United States | Companies established in 1908
