Halliburton moving to Dubai

Halliburton, the much-maligned Houston-based oil services company, is making a pretty significant change: Yesterday, company CEO Dave Lesar announced that Halliburton will soon move its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai. The move, Lesar said, will let Halliburton focus on its business in the Mideast and Asia: "The eastern hemisphere is a market that is more heavily weighted toward oil exploration and production opportunities and growing our business here will bring more balance to Halliburton's overall portfolio," he said. According to the AP, more than 38 percent of Halliburton's $13 billion in oilfield services revenue came from the eastern hemisphere last year.

So, Dubai, eh? Yeah — we've all heard about the manmade islands, the indoor ski slope and the mile after mile of skyscrapers under construction, but all that money is coming from an extended oil boom that's making Dubai a new center of the oil business. "Nobody lives in compounds, people feel safe here," Jeffrey Eldredge, who helped open a Vinson & Elkins office in Dubai a few years ago, told the Chronicle. "What's happening here is pretty stunning. Many of our clients are setting up regional headquarters in Dubai, and their lawyers and financial types are going to the region, so it's convenient to be there and we need to be there." We're sure those nonstop flights between Houston and Dubai are going to come in handy.

As far as the local impact of the move, there shouldn't be much — at least not in the short term. Halliburton spokeswoman Melissa Norcross told the Chronicle that there won't be any layoffs among the company's 4,000 Houston employees. Mayor Bill White — who apparently wasn't notified of Lesar's announcement in advance — gave a somewhat cool response to the news: "Where a particular CEO chooses to spend his time is not something I think I would get involved with," White said. But as the Chronicle notes, more energy companies moving to the Mideast could have long-term ramifications for Houston: "The business is changing," Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow for energy studies at Rice University's Baker Institute, said. "Will Houston remain the center of the energy business? I don't know."