Must-know: An overview of Halliburton

Halliburton (HAL) is a Texas-based energy company. It’s an oil and gas equipment and service provider. It provides services related to exploration, development, and production of oil and natural gas to companies around the world. Halliburton has two major divisions:

1. Completion and Production segment
2. Drilling and Evaluation segment

Geographically, Halliburton’s operations are organized in four primary locations:

• North America
• Latin America
• Europe, Africa, and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)
• Middle East and Asia

It’s important to note that the CIS is a regional organization of countries.

In the past year, Halliburton’s stock price went down ~22%. As noted in the above graph, its share price increased ~49% until July last year—when the oil price was near its peak. Since then, it fell sharply by ~48%. WTI (West Texas Intermediate) declined ~55%. It went up temporarily in November after the announcement about Baker Hughes’ merger with Halliburton. However, the share price didn’t hold up at that level. It decreased 22% since November 17.

Other oilfield service companies have also been negatively affected by the fall in the crude oil price. Schlumberger’s (SLB) stock went down by 11% in the past year. Weatherford International’s (WFT) stock price went down by 30% during this period. However, Baker Hughes’ (BHI) stock price held up despite the decline in the crude oil price.

Baker Hughes’ proposed merger with Halliburton triggered positive investor sentiment towards the stock. Read Baker Hughes-Halliburton: A critical deal for the oil industry to learn more about the merger.

All of these companies are part of the VanEck Vectors Oil Services ETF (OIH) and the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE).

In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss Halliburton’s segments in more detail.