- Chicago Bridge & Iron Company
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Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. 
Type Public (NYSE: CBI) Industry Conglomerate Founded 1889 Founder(s) Horace E. Horton
George Wheelock
William WheelockHeadquarters Registered Office: The Hague, Netherlands
Headquarters: The Woodlands, TX, USAArea 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.), (NYSE: CBI), 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:
- Two liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals in the UK (South Hook LNG in Milford Haven, Wales which will be the largest LNG terminal in Europe; and the Grain LNG import terminal near London)
- An LNG liquefaction plant in Pampa Melchorita, Peru
- A natural gas processing and treating complex in Cabinda Province, Angola
- A crude vacuum and decoking unit expansion project for a refinery in Kansas, USA
- The Golden Pass LNG import terminal near Sabine Pass, Texas, USA
- A large tankage facility at Shell Pearl GTL (Qatar)
- Hydrotreating and sulfur removal/recovery facilities for several major U.S. refiners
- A liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminal at Quintero Bay, Chile, worth approximately $775 million
- A Cat Gas Hydrotreater (CGHT) in El Paso, Texas, USA
- A hydrogen generation plant in Benecia, Ca, USA
- The world's largest propane dehydrogenation unit in Houston, TX, USA
- A grass roots nuclear contract in the USA
- Multiple middle east storage facilities
- Oil sands storage tanks in Alberta, Canada
- In November 2004, CB&I was awarded a contract by one of the world's largest suppliers of wind turbines to fabricate 150 tubular steel support towers for wind turbines that were installed in wind farms in the western United States. The towers support 1.5-megawatt wind turbines, which are the largest wind turbines assembled in the United States and the most widely sold and tested megawatt class wind turbines in the world.
References
External links
Categories:- Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
- Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States
- History of Chicago, Illinois
- Companies based in Montgomery County, Texas
- Construction and civil engineering companies
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