Halliburton Company

Overview

Halliburton is one of the world's largest oilfield services companies, supplying products and services to the upstream oil and gas industry across more than 70 countries. Founded in 1919 by Erle P. Halliburton in Oklahoma City, it pioneered cementing technology for oil wells and has since expanded into nearly every part of well construction, completion, and production optimization. It is headquartered in Houston and employs roughly 46,000 people globally, a headcount reduced through restructuring in 2025.

Halliburton competes mainly with SLB, formerly Schlumberger, and Baker Hughes across its global service lines, with particular strength in hydraulic fracturing and completion services in North America, where it has historically been the dominant player. CEO Jeff Miller has run the company since 2017 and has positioned it as the most North America-focused of the major service companies, a bet on the structural importance of U.S. shale to global supply.

Business segments

North America franchise

Halliburton's position in North American pressure pumping is its most distinctive asset. It commands the largest share of the U.S. hydraulic fracturing market, with a pumping fleet that dwarfs its competitors. With U.S. crude production at roughly 13.5 million barrels per day, making the United States the world's largest oil producer, Halliburton has been the primary service provider behind that output, and North American completion activity and pricing both softened through 2025 as operators trimmed budgets.

The company has invested heavily in electric fracturing fleets, which replace diesel pumping equipment with electric motors powered by field-generated natural gas or grid electricity. E-frac cuts emissions, lowers fuel costs, and improves operational reliability, which has made it increasingly preferred by E&P operators. By the end of 2025 roughly half of the North American fracturing fleet had converted to the Zeus electric platform. Halliburton is also pushing toward autonomous operations: its Octiv Auto Frac service, launched in January 2025 with Coterra Energy as first operator, automates fracturing design and execution on Zeus, and the newer Zeus IQ system extends that.

International growth

North America is the historical stronghold, and the international business has grown to roughly 61% of total revenue as U.S. activity softened in 2025. Halliburton has expanded across the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE, where national oil companies invest heavily to hold or grow production capacity, though activity in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait eased in 2025. In Latin America, a slowdown in Pemex-related work and payment delays in Mexico weighed on results, partly offset by growth in Argentina's Vaca Muerta shale and completion-tool sales in Brazil.

International activity is generally steadier than North America, with longer contracts and more predictable spending by national oil companies that prioritize production targets over near-term commodity prices. That counterweights the cyclicality of the North American business, which moves quickly with the U.S. rig count and completion activity. 2025 showed international revenue is not immune either, dipping about 2% on Middle East and Mexico weakness.

Financial performance

Halliburton reported FY2025 revenue of approximately $22.2 billion, down about 3% from FY2024 on softer North American completion activity and Mexico weakness as operators tightened capital budgets amid lower oil prices and the OPEC+ unwinding of supply cuts. GAAP operating income fell to $2.3 billion, weighed down by $831 million of impairments and severance charges from a 2025 restructuring, while adjusted operating income was $3.1 billion. GAAP net income was roughly $1.3 billion, or $1.50 per diluted share, with adjusted diluted EPS of about $2.42. The company generated $875 million of free cash flow and returned 85% of it to shareholders through $1.0 billion of share repurchases and a $0.17 quarterly dividend.

Profitability is more tied to North American activity cycles than at SLB or Baker Hughes, which creates greater earnings volatility and more upside in periods of strong U.S. drilling and completion. The company has historically targeted segment operating margins in the high teens to low twenties, and margins compressed in the 2025 downcycle, with Drilling & Evaluation slipping to the mid-teens.

Strategy & outlook

Halliburton competes on the quality of its downhole tools, completion designs, and software rather than on price. It has invested in digital, automation, and data analytics capability, including the iEnergy cloud platform, which integrates subsurface data with real-time operational monitoring, and the Octiv and Zeus IQ autonomous fracturing systems that push toward hands-off completion operations.

Unlike SLB, Halliburton has not pivoted meaningfully toward clean energy or geothermal services. It stays focused on hydrocarbons, betting that oil and gas demand holds for decades and that shareholder value comes from being the most efficient, technology-leading provider of oilfield services to that market. One adjacent move came in 2025, when Halliburton expanded a collaboration with VoltaGrid to supply roughly 400 megawatts of modular natural-gas power systems for hyperscale data centers, slated for 2028 delivery, applying its power and equipment expertise to AI-driven electricity demand rather than to zero-emission generation.

Key considerations

The North America concentration is both advantage and vulnerability. It gives exposure to U.S. shale's structural importance to global supply, and it makes the company unusually sensitive to U.S. rig count cycles, natural gas price volatility, and shifts in E&P capital discipline. When North American operators cut activity, as in 2020, across 2023 and 2024, and again in 2025 when North American revenue fell about 6%, Halliburton's earnings fall faster and further than peers with more balanced geographic exposure.

The long-term question for every oilfield services company is how quickly the energy transition shrinks the total market for upstream services. Halliburton's explicit bet on hydrocarbons, and its limited investment in new energy adjacencies beyond natural-gas power for data centers, ties its growth more directly to the pace and shape of that transition than more diversified peers.

Sources