Williams Companies
 | |
| Company type | Public (NYSE: WMB) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Oil and Gas |
| Founded | 1908 |
| Founder | David Williams Miller Williams |
| Headquarters | Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA |
Area served | North America |
Key people | Steven J. Malcolm (Chairman) & (CEO) |
| Products | Oil & Natural gas |
| Revenue |  $ 12.352 billion (2008) |
| $ 2.624 billion (2008) | |
| $ 1.418 billion (2008) | |
| Total assets | $ 26.006 billion (2008) |
| Total equity | $ 8.440 billion (2008) |
Number of employees | 3,913 |
| Website | 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 and the Dow Jones Utility Average.
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.
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).