Halliburton has struck a deal to buy Multi-Chem Group, North America’s fourth-largest production chemicals company, in a deal set to plug a gap in its oil and gas extraction services offering.
Halliburton Chief Executive David Lesar says there is more demand for oilfield services companies to provide a broader range of services in-house, something the acquisition of Multi-Chem – for an undisclosed sum – will help achieve.
“It has been frustrating pumping competitors’ chemicals with our equipment,” he told investors at the Barclays Capital 2011 CEO Energy-Power Conference in New York on Tuesday, according to a Reuters report.
Multi-Chem has 900 customers worldwide and about 750 employees, and there are no plans for redundancies in the combination, according to a company statement from Multi-Chem, which is the fourth-largest production chemicals company.
Reuters reports that Chief Financial Officer Mark McCollum told the conference that Halliburton’s outlook had not changed, with North America set to grow more as clients base their plans on oil prices “substantially below” current prices, while the improvement in international markets remained “slow and steady.”
