Chicago Bridge & Iron Company

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V.
Type Public (NYSECBI)
Industry Conglomerate
Founded 1889
Founder(s) Horace E. Horton
George Wheelock
William Wheelock
Headquarters Registered Office: The Hague, Netherlands
Headquarters: The Woodlands, TX, USA
Area served Worldwide
Key people Michael L. Underwood
(Chairman of the Audit Committee)
L. Richard Flury
(Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee)
Philip K. Asherman
(President), (CEO) & (Director)
Revenue $ 5.944 billion (2008)
Operating income $ 35.21 million (2008)
Net income $ -21.15 million (2008)
Total assets $ 3.000 billion (2008)
Total equity $ 555.83 million (2008)
Employees 16,000 (March 2010)
Website CBI.com

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V.), (NYSECBI), known commonly as CB&I, is a large multinational conglomerate engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company. CB&I specializes in projects for oil and gas companies. CB&I operates from more than 80 locations around the world, and as of August 1, 2009, CB&I has a total of approximately 16,000 employees.

Contents

Corporate Headquarters and Leadership

The company's registered office is located in The Hague, Netherlands.

The company's worldwide administrative office is located near Houston, Texas, in the The Woodlands, an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Texas, United States.[1]

The current Corporate Officers are[2]:

President and Chief Executive Officer: Philip K. Asherman

Chief Financial Officer: Ronald A. Ballschmiede

Executive Vice President—Corporate Planning: E. Chip Ray

Chief Operating Officer: Lasse Petterson

President—Lummus Technology: Daniel M. McCarthy

Chief Administration Officer: Beth A. Bailey

Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer: Richard E. Chandler

History

CB&I was founded in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, as Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, when Horace E. Horton, a bridge designer, agreed to merge business with George and William Wheelock of the Kansas City Bridge and Iron Company.

While initially involved in bridge design and construction, CB&I turned its focus to bulk liquid storage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coinciding with the western expansion of railroads across the United States and the discovery of oil in the U.S. Southwest. CB&I quickly became known for design engineering and field construction of elevated water storage tanks, aboveground tanks for storage of petroleum and refined products, refinery process vessels and other steel plate structures.

CB&I supported the expansion of oil exploration outside the U.S., starting operations in South America in 1924, in Asia two years later, and in the Middle East in 1939.

During World War II, CB&I was selected to build Landing Ship Tank (LSTs). LSTs carried troops and supplies to American and Allied troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific theaters. CB&I was chosen because of their reputation and skills, particularly welding. Since the coastal shipyards were busy building the large vessels for the war effort such as aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, there was no alternative but to use the inland waterways and shipyards for the production of smaller ships.

Over the course of the company's history, CB&I developed many technologies and achieved a number of industry milestones, including the first floating-roof tank for the oil industry (1923), the first spherical pressure vessel (1923), the first double-wall LNG storage tank (1958), the first site-assembled thick wall steel nuclear reactor vessel (1966), the first marine liquid natural gas (LNG) storage and distribution terminal in the U.S. (1971), the world's largest steel water reservoir (1986), the world's largest vacuum distillation tower (1999), and the world's largest Thermal Energy Storage Tank (2009) to name just a few.

CB&I Today

In late 2000, CB&I embarked on a series of acquisitions that have expanded its services to encompass the entire hydrocarbon industry, from conceptual design through technology licensing, engineering and construction; to final commissioning and technical services.

CB&I completed its largest single acquisition to date with the purchase of Lummus Global from ABB on November 19, 2007, adding approximately 3,000 employees to the CB&I payroll.

CB&I's global business sectors are:

CB&I Lummus which performs the global engineering, procurement, modularization and construction work for upstream and downstream oil and gas projects, including complete LNG liquefaction trains and regasification terminals.

CB&I Steel Plate Structures which consolidates CB&I's legacy flat bottom tank, nuclear containment vessel, cryogenic storage and water tower businesses.

Lummus Technology which provides process technology licensing for refineries, chemical plants and gas processing plants, in addition to providing catalysts and technical services.

Examples of recent major projects around the world include:

References

External links

Houston portal
Chicago portal
Companies portal