The Williams Companies, Inc. history, profile and corporate video
The Williams Companies, Inc. is an American energy company headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. It was founded in 1908 by two brothers, Miller and David Williams, as “Williams Brothers”, a construction business in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Within a few years, the brothers expanded to building nationwide pipelines for natural gas and petroleum.
In 1923, they began building pipelines internationally.
In 1957, the company went public under the Williams Brothers name.
As it diversified in the 1970s, it was renamed The Williams Companies, Inc.
Since 1997, their brand identity has been simplified to “Williams”.
The company also helped to get the modern telecommunications industry off the ground by running fiber optic cable through its decommissioned pipelines. It built two nationwide networks, which subsequently spun off into two separate companies. The first one was sold in 1995 to LDDS, which would become WorldCom & then MCI). The second one was spun off in 2001 as Williams Communications, which adopted the name WilTel Communications in the following year, and ultimately was acquired by Level 3 Communications.
The company engages in providing the necessary infrastructure that safely delivers natural gas products to reliably fuel the clean energy economy. Its main operations include Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast Gathering & Processing, and West Gathering & Processing.
Transmission & Gulf of Mexico
Williams’ Transmission & Gulf of Mexico Operating Area includes Transco, the nation’s largest-volume interstate natural gas pipeline system and Northwest Pipeline, a bi-directional interstate natural gas transmission pipeline and storage system.
Northeast Gathering & Processing
The Northeast Gathering & Processing assets provide wet and dry gas gathering and transportation infrastructure, connecting supplies from the Marcellus and Utica Shales with markets in the Northeast and Southeast portions of the U.S.
West Gathering & Processing
The West Gathering & Processing assets provide customers with safe and reliable gathering, processing and treating services, as well as natural gas liquids transportation, fractionation, and storage services.
With more than 5 000 employees, The Williams Companies, Inc. is considered one of the top 2000 largest public companies in the world, according to Forbes.
*Information from Forbes.com, Wikipedia.org, and www.williams.com.
**Video published on YouTube by “Williams Energy Company“.
