The Williams Companies, Inc

Williams is an energy infrastructure company focused on connecting North America’s significant hydrocarbon resource plays to growing markets for natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs). Williams’ interstate gas pipeline and gathering & processing operations span the United States, including strategic assets in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest and the Eastern Seaboard.  Williams owns and operates midstream gathering and processing assets, and interstate natural gas pipelines. See more about our operations.  Williams’ headquarters are located in Tulsa, Okla. Other major offices are in Houston, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.  Founded in 1908, Williams employs more than 5,000 people and is an equal opportunity employer. The Company does not discriminate in any employer/employee relations based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, national origin, age, marital status, disability, military status, genetic information or any other basis protected by applicable discrimination laws.  Williams common stock (WMB) is listed on the New York Exchange.

Our History

Williams traces its roots to humble beginnings in 1908. Two brothers, Miller and David Williams, started small with a construction business in Fort Smith, Ark. Within a few years, their business grew to encompass building cross-country pipelines.  In this fledgling industry, the Williams brothers stood out with the reputation they earned for doing a good job on time and on budget. In 1919, they moved their burgeoning business to Tulsa, Okla., which serves as the company’s headquarters to this day.  Williams Brothers ContractorsFor the first six decades, the company name was Williams Brothers. With the growth in scale and business, the company in the 1970s changed its name to The Williams Companies, Inc. Today, we go by Williams.  The company has a long and continuing history of change, adaptation, acquisitions, expansions, divestments and growth – with the evolution of opportunities, economics and market dynamics.  In 1966, Williams bought a pipeline in what was the largest leveraged buyout that Wall Street had ever seen. That transaction began Williams’ transformation from builder to owner and operator of large pipeline systems.  After a period of time in the 1970s as a conglomerate with businesses ranging from fertilizer and steel to retail stores and commercial real estate development, Williams turned its full focus back to energy and pipelines.  The company began assembling its nationwide system of interstate natural gas pipelines in 1983 with the purchase of Northwest Energy Company.  The 1995 acquisition of Transco Energy Company expanded Williams’ natural gas transportation system to the East Coast and established the company as one of the nation’s largest-volume transporters of natural gas.  In 1998, Williams purchased MAPCO, another Tulsa-based energy business, whose assets happened to include a pipeline the Williams built in 1960, during the heyday of its construction business.  During a period from the mid-1980s to the beginnings of this century, Williams played a foundational role in today’s digital world with the development of vital fiber-optic telecommunications networks that span the United States. This business began with company engineers’ bright idea to use retired-from-service pipelines as conduit for fragile fiber-optic cable. Williams’ story of innovation and reinvention here endures as an example in business-school curriculum.  The company narrowed its focus back to energy again in 2001. Williams exited the telecommunications business and acquired Barrett Resources, adding significant natural gas reserves, primarily in the western United States. Williams’ development of those reserves earned it the designation of Platts Global Energy Awards 2006 Hydrocarbon Producer of the Year.  Early in the 21st century, the company successfully forged through liquidity challenges wrought by the implosion of both the energy trading and telecommunications industries. Williams sold more than $8 billion in assets and restructured its business, all while continuing to pay a quarterly dividend to common-stock shareholders, as it has done without interruption since 1974. In 2007, the results of the company’s financial strengthening actions resulted in its return to investment-grade credit.  Recognizing the need for large-scale infrastructure to connect new, shale-gas supply regions with markets, Williams in 2009 began investing to grow its business in the Marcellus producing area of the U.S. Northeast. Today, the company is one of the largest gatherers and processors of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale-gas supply regions.  As well, Williams has continued to invest in expanding its Transco interstate natural gas pipeline system – the nation’s largest, and fastest-growing – to create access to “best markets” to the north and south of the Marcellus and Utica supply areas.  The company’s mid-2014 acquisition of controlling interest in Access Midstream Partners L.P. adds to Williams’ growth footprint in the Marcellus and Utica producing areas. As well, the acquisition of the Oklahoma City-based company expands Williams’ U.S. business in areas of the Mid-Continent and the West.

Core Values & Beliefs

• Integrity. Integrity must not be compromised. Honest relationships and trust are essential for long-term business success. We deal fairly in all our business relations.

• Safety and Environmental Stewardship. We are fully committed to the health and safety of our workforce and on the protection of our neighbors, the environment and our assets.

• Investors. We are committed to providing our investors an attractive return over the long term.

• Customers. We exist to help our external customers achieve their business objectives. To succeed, we must understand our customers’ businesses and dependably deliver what they value most.

• Employees. People are the Company’s most valuable resource. We possess immense powers of innovation, imagination, skill – and a desire to accomplish something of significance. Working as a team allows all of us to realize our full potential.

• Communities. We recognize and enthusiastically accept our responsibility to the communities we serve, through acting as a good neighbor and through involvement and support for community activities.

• Entrepreneurial Spirit. We maintain a corporate culture that values originality, invention and creativity, and that nurtures these qualities through openness and reverence for the entrepreneurial spirit.

• Tolerance for Risk. The Company’s willingness to take risks in deploying new technology and investing in large capital projects is central to our culture and our success.

• Efficiency and Effectiveness. We continuously collaborate with our customers and within our teams to discover and apply safer, better, faster and more cost-efficient ways to provide the services our customers value.

• Change. We welcome change for the opportunities it offers.

Vision

Williams will be the premier provider of large-scale infrastructure connecting the growing supply of North American natural gas and natural gas products to growing global demand for clean fuels and feedstocks.

Mission

• Operate safely in everything we do, every day.
• Execute on our commitments exceptionally well.
• Collaborate to rapidly deliver our best solutions.
• Grow our business, our people and our industry.
• Improve our operations and business performance continuously.

In America, energy independence depends on us.

At Williams, we’ve been around more than a century, yet our mission has never been more important. We enable our customers, investors, employees and communities to maximize the opportunities created by the vastly greater supply of natural gas and natural gas products. We do it with steel in the ground — critical infrastructure on a massive scale. We do it safely — operational excellence at the highest level. And we do it with integrity — unwavering and unmatched. That’s how we make energy happen.