October 27, 2003	Monday	Sha’aban 30, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 26: US vice-president Dick Cheney’s Halliburton company is likely to establish an institute in Pakistan to train oil engineers and technical experts from the Middle East and South Asian region.

Sources said that Halliburton’s move was in response to the US administration’s new policy of discouraging its companies and non-governmental organizations to train Muslim engineers and scientists in the US owing to terrorist threats.

The sources said that Egypt, citing increasing terrorist threats in Pakistan was trying to position itself for Halliburton’s training institute.

Halliburton’s subsidiaries, Brown & Roots and Dresser Industries, are already operating in more than 130 countries around the world including Asia and Africa.

Halliburton plans to expand its energy and petroleum business in the Middle East and Asian countries.

Founded in 1919, it is one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the petroleum and energy industries.

In 2001, the company had revenues of $13 billion and employed approximately 85,000 at year-end and its revenues from locations outside the United States represented 62 per cent of the company’s revenues.

Its Energy Services Group business segment consists of business units that offer the broad array of products and services to upstream crude oil and natural gas customers worldwide, stretching from the provision of drill bits, drilling fluids, pressure pumping services, downhole tools, and data interpretation services.

On its board of directors are the most influential executives, former US officials and businessmen. They include Robert L. Crandall, Kenneth T. Derr, Charles J. Dibona, W. R. Howell, Ray L. Hunt, David J. Lesar, Aylwin B. Lewis, J. Landis Martin, Jay A. Precourt, Derra L. Reed and C. J. Silas.

The company is currently in a controversy for getting multi billion dollars worth of contracts in Iraq at very high rates. It, however says that because of wartime emergency, the US Department of Defence asked Halliburton to provide emergency services in Iraq.

One of these wartime emergency services is to provide short term reliable fuel procurement and distribution support for the Iraqi people.

The company has been directed to acquire, transport and distribute fuel through a hostile environment and deliver it on a reliable and timely basis to various locations within Iraq. It was tasked with importing fuel in the region until transition to “in country” companies such as Iraq’s state-owned oil company, State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), is feasible and reliable.

Halliburton helped build US warships in World War II, as well as projects in Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti. It also put out more than half of the oil well fires in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War and now is assisting with restoration efforts in Iraq.