Fifty years ago, in November 1947, Brown &amp; Root helped Kerr-McGee build the first out-of-sight-land offshore platform that produced oil. The date is widely celebrated as the birth of the modern offshore industry. In the years since this historic occasion, Brown &amp; Root has continued to pioneer in the design and construction of offshore pipelines and platforms. Along with the rest of the offshore industry, the company has helped develop technology capable of finding and producing oil in deepwater and in harsh environments around the world. This history puts a human face on the process of technological change. Using the words of many of those who took part in Brown &amp; Root's offshore activities, this book recounts their efforts to find practical ways to recover offshore oil. Building on lessons learned in the Gulf of Mexico before and after World War II, the company's personnel adapted offshore technologies to conditions encountered in Venezuela, the Middle East, Alaska, and other regions before becoming one of the first engineering and construction companies to confront the challenge of North Sea development in the 1960's. Through times of boom and bust in the oil industry, the search for effective technology had continued. The process has not always been smooth, but the results have been impressive. As we enter a new and exciting era in offshore technology, the history of the first fifty years of the industry provides a useful context for understanding current and future events.

Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas

Engineering & Transportation

Pratt, Joseph A.

Transportation

Gulf Professional Publishing

As counsel for Pennzoil's successful effort to recover billions of dollars in damages from Texaco over the acquisition of Getty Oil Company, the Baker &amp; Botts law firm of Houston, Texas, achieved wide public recognition in the 1980s. But among its peers in the legal and corporate worlds, Baker &amp; Botts has for more than a century held a preeminent position, handling the legal affairs of such blue-chip clients as the Southern Pacific Railroad, Houston Lighting &amp; Power Company, Rice University, Texas Commerce Bank, and Tenneco. In this study, Kenneth J. Lipartito and Joseph A. Pratt chronicle the history of Baker &amp; Botts, placing particular emphasis on the firm's role in Houston's economic development. Founded in 1840, Baker &amp; Botts literally grew up with Houston. The authors chart its evolution from a nineteenth-century regional firm that represented eastern-based corporations moving into Texas to a twentieth-century national firm with clients throughout the world. They honestly discuss the criticisms that Baker &amp; Botts has faced as an advocate of big business. But they also identify the important impact that corporate law firms of this type have on business reorganization and government regulation. As the authors demonstrate in this case study, law firms throughout the twentieth century have helped to shape public policy in these critical areas. Always prominent in the community, and with prominent connections (former Secretary of State James A. Baker III is the great-grandson of the original Baker), the Baker &amp; Botts law firm belongs in any history of the development of Houston and the Southwest.

Baker & Botts in the Development of Modern Houston

Business & Money

Lipartito, Kenneth J.

Economics

University of Texas Press

As counsel for Pennzoil's successful effort to recover billions of dollars in damages from Texaco over the acquisition of Getty Oil Company, the Baker & Botts law firm of Houston, Texas, achieved wide public recognition in the 1980s. But among its peers in the legal and corporate worlds, Baker & Botts has for more than a century held a preeminent position, handling the legal affairs of such blue-chip clients as the Southern Pacific Railroad, Houston Lighting & Power Company, Rice University, Texas Commerce Bank, and Tenneco. In this study, Kenneth J. Lipartito and Joseph A. Pratt chronicle the history of Baker & Botts, placing particular emphasis on the firm's role in Houston's economic development. Founded in 1840, Baker & Botts literally grew up with Houston. The authors chart its evolution from a nineteenth-century regional firm that represented eastern-based corporations moving into Texas to a twentieth-century national firm with clients throughout the world. They honestly discuss the criticisms that Baker & Botts has faced as an advocate of big business. But they also identify the important impact that corporate law firms of this type have on business reorganization and government regulation. As the authors demonstrate in this case study, law firms throughout the twentieth century have helped to shape public policy in these critical areas. Always prominent in the community, and with prominent connections (former Secretary of State James A. Baker III is the great-grandson of the original Baker), the Baker & Botts law firm belongs in any history of the development of Houston and the Southwest.

Fifty years ago, in November 1947, Brown &amp; Root helped Kerr-McGee build the first out-of-sight-land offshore platform that produced oil. The date is widely celebrated as the birth of the modern offshore industry. In the years since this historic occasion, Brown &amp; Root has continued to pioneer in the design and construction of offshore pipelines and platforms. Along with the rest of the offshore industry, the company has helped develop technology capable of finding and producing oil in deepwater and in harsh environments around the world. This history puts a human face on the process of technological change. Using the words of many of those who took part in Brown &amp; Root's offshore activities, this book recounts their efforts to find practical ways to recover offshore oil. Building on lessons learned in the Gulf of Mexico before and after World War II, the company's personnel adapted offshore technologies to conditions encountered in Venezuela, the Middle East, Alaska, and other regions before becoming one of the first engineering and construction companies to confront the challenge of North Sea development in the 1960's. Through times of boom and bust in the oil industry, the search for effective technology had continued. The process has not always been smooth, but the results have been impressive. As we enter a new and exciting era in offshore technology, the history of the first fifty years of the industry provides a useful context for understanding current and future events.

Castaneda, Christopher J.

Priest, Tyler

Industries

Texas Commerce Bank. Free tracking. Signed by authors.

But Also Good Business: Texas Commerce Banks and the Financing of Houston and Texas, 1886-1986

Buenger, Walter L.

Texas A & M Univ Pr

Immediately after World War II, several Houston-based firms organized to transport natural gas from the giant fields of the Southwest to the large utility companies that distributed energy in the urban-industrial centers along the East coast. This relatively inexpensive and clean-burning fuel quickly made spectacular inroads into markets previously served by coal and petroleum. Texas Eastern was one of the major competitors in the post-war industry. The company's origins were unique. Early in 1947, a group of entrepreneurs led by Herman and George R. Brown, founders of the Brown &amp; Root construction firm, purchased the Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines from the U.S. government, which had built them to transport crude oil and petroleum product vital to the war effort. By converting these pipelines to the transportation of natural gas, the founders of Texas Eastern got in on the ground floor of a dynamic industry. With full access to company files, Christopher J. Castaneda and Joseph A. Pratt follow the company from its creation in 1947 to its purchase by Panhandle Eastern Corporation in 1989. During this period, Texas Eastern's strategy focused on expansion of its natural gas system and diversification into other related industries including liquefied natural gas sales, North Sea oil and gas production, and Houston real estate. In the 1970s and 1980s, the company faced a series of challenges from the energy crisis, the deregulation of natural gas, and the hostile takeover movement in the energy industries. By the late 1980s, the process of diversification had come full circle, as the company sold off subsidiaries and refocused on the transmission of natural gas as a part of Panhandle Eastern's vast system.

From Texas to the East: A Strategic History of Texas Eastern Corporation

History

Americas

Texas A&M University Press

For more than a century the Houston area has grown steadily and at times spectacularly. The lifeblood of the region's development has been the flow of credit; its heart, the banks that have pumped investment dollars through the economy, and particularly Texas Commerce Bank, one of the city's largest. From the chartering of Texas Commerce's first predecessor in 1886, the bank's ancestor institutions helped finance the growth of the region's lumber, cotton, and oil industries and played important roles in Houston's civic life. One of them, the National Bank of Commerce, was long controlled by Jesse Jones, secretary of commerce and head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation under President Franklin Roosevelt and one of the fathers of modern Houston. In recent decades Texas Commerce again received considerable publicity as one of the fastest growing and most profitable banks in the nation. Since the early 1970s, it acquired more than seventy subsidiary banks throughout Texas and the region. In their research the authors had complete access to bank records and to current and retired bank officers. The balanced, readable result will fascinate bankers, investors, economic and business historians, and others interested in the economic development of a state region.

The first book to explore in depth recent issues facing the oil and natural gas industry,The Oil Makers goes straight to the industry’s leaders. Jeffrey Share presents a collection of prominent voices, including presidents and CEOs of several of the nation’s largest oil and gas companies. The book also contains interviews with two former secretaries of the Department of Energy, as well as major lobbyists and executives in the various service industries. The Oil Makers brings to light important and controversial issues such as the image of the industry, the environmental movement and regulations, the trauma and effect of the 1980s depression, finance and taxation issues, the increasing shift to overseas production, the idea of a national energy policy, and the future of the industry. Share provides an inside look at all aspects of the oil and natural gas industry: the majors, independents, drilling contractors, service companies, natural gas, consultants, investment bankers and analysts, politicians, and the new breed.The Oil Makers contains interviews with Roy Huffington, Orville Gaither, Matt Simmons, James Day, Denise Bode, Al Baker, Robert Rose, John Olson, Ed Rothschild, Carol Freedenthal, George Mitchell, Donald Hodel, Admiral James Watkins, and many more.

The Oil Makers: Insiders Look at the Petroleum Industry

Rice Univ Pr

The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, which houses the extensive ExxonMobil Historical Collection, is honored to publish the fifth volume of Exxon’s corporate history, which extends the history of Exxon and its predecessors to more than 125 years, the longest in-depth account of a private company in existence.
ExxonMobil’s history stretches from the time of kerosene lamps to the era of jet travel, from the days of finding oil by searching for surface indications to the days of 3-D seismic, which uses powerful computers to create images of oil deep underground. Its learning curve was particularly steep in the years covered by this book, 1973–2005, when the company adapted to new realities that confronted it at every turn.
ExxonMobil has remained among the most profitable concerns in the history of modern capitalism by showing flexibility when faced with the need to adapt to changing conditions. As the company responded to sweeping changes in global markets, its decisions reflected a deeply held corporate culture that rested on the key operating values of engineering efficiency and financial discipline. This extensively researched volume demonstrates how Exxon’s core values and management enabled the company to adapt and succeed during a period of dramatic changes for the energy industry. Pratt and Hale provide readers a historical perspective from inside one of the most powerful corporations in the world.

Exxon: Transforming Energy, 1973–2005

Hale, William E.

Biography & History

Briscoe Ctr for Amer History UT-Austin

The National Petroleum Council (NPC) emerged out of the close cooperation between the petroleum industry and the federal government during World War II. An industry-financed advisory committee designed to work closely with the Department of the Interior, it enjoyed a remarkable independence from political or financial pressures. Including representatives of all phases of the petroleum business, the NPC could reach deep within the industry for information on vital issues. In the last fifty-plus years, the Council has evolved into a voice of the marketplace, analyzing conditions in the petroleum industry at the request of the government and publishing its findings in reports widely considered authoritative and useful.Three uniquely qualified historians here chronicle the development and contributions of the NPC to both the energy industry and the American market. While technological advances, skyrocketing world demand, the rise of OPEC, and far-reaching regulatory initiatives have fundamentally transformed the petroleum industry's structure and operating environment, the National Petroleum Council has remained a reliable source of authoritative information. Joseph A. Pratt, William H. Becker, and William McClenahan, Jr., analyze the choices and strategies that have given the Council the adaptability and resilience to survive and remain important.The authors look also at the actual reports generated by the Council—more than two hundred studies to date—and the impact they have had on both government and business. They examine the NPC's ability to tap information and personnel from all sectors of the industry and to fund from industry resources studies that would have exceeded the pockets of the federal government. They consider the way the Council has managed to encompass the varied viewpoints within a diverse, highly competitive industry, and particularly to bridge the sharp historical division between the "majors" and the "independents." Finally, the authors analyze the one political concern that has remained constant for the industry: antitrust.This engagingly written book not only sheds light on the petroleum industry and its regulatory context, but also addresses the larger questions of the U.S. government's relations with the industries it regulates.

Voice of the Marketplace: A History of the National Petroleum Council (Volume 13) (Kenneth E. Montague Series in Oil and Business History)

McClenahan Jr., William M.

Becker, William H.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pratt, Joseph A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Pratt, Joseph A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pratt, Joseph A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas

Baker & Botts in the Development of Modern Houston

Baker & Botts in the Development of Modern Houston

Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas

But Also Good Business: Texas Commerce Banks and the Financing of Houston and Texas, 1886-1986

From Texas to the East: A Strategic History of Texas Eastern Corporation

But Also Good Business: Texas Commerce Banks and the Financing of Houston and Texas, 1886-1986

The Oil Makers: Insiders Look at the Petroleum Industry

Exxon: Transforming Energy, 1973–2005

Voice of the Marketplace: A History of the National Petroleum Council (Volume 13) (Kenneth E. Montague Series in Oil and Business History)