NOV Inc., formerly National Oilwell Varco, is an American

multinational corporation A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...

based in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. It is a worldwide provider of equipment and components used in oil and gas drilling and production operations,

oilfield A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

services, and supply chain integration services to the

upstream Upstream may refer to: * Upstream (bioprocess) * ''Upstream'' (film), a 1927 film by John Ford * Upstream (networking) * ''Upstream'' (newspaper), a newspaper covering the oil and gas industry * Upstream (petroleum industry) * Upstream (software ...

oil and gas industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The largest ...

. The company conducts operations in more than 500 locations across six continents, operating through three reporting segments: Rig Technologies, Wellbore Technologies, and Completion & Production Solutions.About NOV
National Oilwell Varco. Retrieved on August 8, 2018. "About NOV."

History

Background

NOV's two main predecessors, Oilwell Supply and National Supply, were founded in 1862 and 1893, respectively. These two companies manufactured and distributed pumps and derricks. In 1930,

United States Steel United States Steel Corporation, more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an American integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with production operations primarily in the United States of America and in several countries ...

acquired Oilwell Supply. In 1958,

Armco Steel AK Steel Holdings Corporation was a steelmaking company headquartered in West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio. The company, whose name was derived from the initials of Armco, its predecessor company, and Kawasaki Steel Corporation, was a ...

merged with National Supply. In 1987, National Supply merged with USS Oilwell to become "National Oilwell". Varco was founded as Abegg and Reinhold Company by Walter Abegg and Baldwin Reinhold in 1908. "VARCO" is an acronym for: Vuilleumiere, Abegg and Reinhold Company after Edgar Vuilleumiere became a partner in 1915, and Varco International in 1973. In 2000, National Oilwell merged with IRI International Corp., founded and managed by

Hushang Ansary Hushang Ansary ( fa, هوشنگ انصاری, born 1927) is an Iranian-American former diplomat, businessman, and philanthropist. He served for eighteen years in the Iranian government prior to the Iranian Revolution including as Minister of Econo ...

, which manufactures and sells drilling rigs and specialty steel products. In 2005, National Oilwell and Varco merged to become National Oilwell Varco.

Recent history

The company acquired major

drill pipe Drill pipe, is hollow, thin-walled, steel or aluminium alloy piping that is used on drilling rigs. It is hollow to allow drilling fluid to be pumped down the hole through the bit and back up the annulus. It comes in a variety of sizes, strengths, ...

and

drill bit Drill bits are cutting tools used in a drill to remove material to create holes, almost always of circular cross-section. Drill bits come in many sizes and shapes and can create different kinds of holes in many different materials. In order ...

manufacturer

Grant Prideco Grant Prideco, Inc. is a supplier of drill pipe and drill stem accessories headquartered in Houston, Texas. Since 2008, it has been a subsidiary of energy services company NOV Inc. Grant Prideco was included on the Fortune magazine top 1000 lar ...

in 2008 for $7.37 billion. At the time, Grant Prideco held 60% of the global drill pipe market and operated 25 manufacturing sites worldwide. The acquisition included Grant Prideco's subsidiaries

IntelliServ IntelliServ is a National Oilwell Varco brand that manufactures and sells a broadband networked drilling string system used to transmit downhole information to the surface in a drilling operation. Background The IntelliServ network is a broa ...

, a producer of drill pipe with built-in equipment to transmit data from a wellhead to surface operators, ReedHycalog, a drill bit producer, and XL Systems, a producer of oil and gas connectors. Grant Prideco, IntelliServ, and ReedHycalog became part of NOV's Wellbore Technologies reporting segment and XL Systems joined the Completion & Production Solutions segment. In February 2012 NOV acquired Russian coring company Interval Ltd. and purchased Dutch oil rig design company GustoMSC in 2018. GustoMSC, originally the engineering office of

Gusto Shipyard Gusto Shipyard, previously A.F. Smulders, was a shipbuilding company in Schiedam, Netherlands. It was famous for dredging and offshore vessels. In 1978 it was closed down under suspicious circumstances. Its engineering office still exists as Gusto ...

, became part of NOV's Rig Technologies segment. In late 2019, NOV bought

Bellingham, Washington Bellingham ( ) is the most populous city in, and county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies south of the U.S.–Canada border in between two major cities of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, British Columbia (locat ...

-based Ershigs, a fabricator of custom pipes and tanks. National Oilwell Varco changed its name to NOV Inc. on January 1, 2021.

Corporate affairs

The company's headquarters are in

Southwest Management District Southwest Management District, formerly Greater Sharpstown Management District, is a district in Houston, Texas, United States. The district is split into 6 neighborhoods: Sharpstown, Chinatown, Mahatma Gandhi District/Little India, Westwood, ...

(formerly Greater Sharpstown), Houston. , it employed over 27,000 people and operated over 550 facilities worldwide. In 2014, Clay Williams took over as CEO of National Oilwell Varco, succeeding former CEO

Pete Miller ''The Office'' is an American television series based on the British television comedy of the same name. The format of the series is a parody of the fly on the wall documentary technique that intersperses traditional situation comedy segments wi ...

, who served as NOV's CEO for nearly 13 years. Miller was expected to become

executive chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of the National Oilwell Varco spinoff company, DistributionNow.

Divisions

Rig Technologies

Rig Technologies engineers and manufactures drilling rigs, drilling equipment packages, and related capital equipment (including

top drive A top drive is a mechanical device on a drilling rig that provides clockwise torque to the drill string to drill a borehole. It is an alternative to the rotary table and kelly drive. It is located at the swivel's place below the traveling block and ...

iron roughnecks An iron roughneck is a piece of hydraulic machinery used to "handle" (connect and disconnect) segments of pipe in a modern drilling rig. The segments can be manipulated as they are hoisted into and out of a borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft ...

drawworks A drawworks is the primary hoisting machinery component of a rotary drilling rig. Its main function is to provide a means of raising and lowering the traveling block. The wire-rope drill line winds on the drawworks drum and over the crown b ...

blowout preventer A blowout preventer (BOP) (pronounced B-O-P, not "bop") is a specialized valve or similar mechanical device, used to seal, control and monitor oil and gas wells to prevent blowouts, the uncontrolled release of crude oil or natural gas from a w ...

mud pump A mud pump (sometimes referred to as a mud drilling pump or drilling mud pump), is a reciprocating piston/plunger pump designed to circulate drilling fluid under high pressure (up to ) down the drill string and back up the annulus. A mud pump is an ...

s, risers, pipe handling, power and control systems) necessary to drill oil and gas wells, as well as marine construction equipment such as heavy-lift cranes, mooring machinery, jacking systems, pipelay and cablelay systems, and

marine riser tensioner A marine riser tensioner is a device used on an offshore drilling vessel which provides a near constant upward force on the drilling riser independent of the movement of the floating drill vessel. The marine riser is connected to the wellhead o ...

s. In addition, the segment provides aftermarket equipment and services such as spare parts, repair, and equipment rentals as well as remote equipment monitoring, technical support, field service, and customer training.

Wellbore Technologies

Wellbore Technologies develops equipment, technologies, and services for oil and gas well operation. The segment provides drill bits, borehole enlargement services, and

directional drilling Directional drilling (or slant drilling) is the practice of drilling non-vertical bores. It can be broken down into four main groups: oilfield directional drilling, utility installation directional drilling, directional boring (horizontal dire ...

tools; optimization/automation software and services; downhole tools for drilling and intervention; premium drill pipe and drill stem accessories; solids control and waste management equipment and services; drilling and completion

fluids In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shear ...

; data acquisition and analytics technologies; managed-pressure-drilling systems; coating and inspection services and

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electromag ...

technology for drill pipe lifecycle management; and

wired drill pipe.

Completion & Production Solutions

Completion & Production Solutions provides equipment and technologies for the well completion process and production phase of a well's lifecycle. The segment produces intervention and stimulation equipment for pressure pumping,

coiled tubing In the oil and gas industries, coiled tubing refers to a very long metal pipe, normally in diameter which is supplied spooled on a large reel. It is used for interventions in oil and gas wells and sometimes as production tubing in depleted g ...

, and wireline operations; composite piping systems, pressure vessels, and structures; integrated processing, production, and pumping equipment (including

artificial lift Artificial lift refers to the use of artificial means to increase the flow of liquids, such as crude oil or water, from a production well. Generally this is achieved by the use of a mechanical device inside the well (known as pump or velocity strin ...

) for

midstream The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream and downstream. The midstream sector involves the transportation (by pipeline, rail, barge, oil tanker or truck), storage, and wholesale marketing of crud ...

, and industrial operations; hydrate inhibition and gas processing technologies; subsea and floating production systems, including flexible pipe and subsea water injection technologies; integral and weld-on connectors for conductor strings, surface casing, and liners; and completion tools—including those involved in multistage

hydraulic fracturing Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...

—liner hanger systems, and subsurface safety valves.

Awards and Accolades

In 2008, NOV was listed as one of the world's most admired companies by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

''. It was also listead as one of the 100 fastest growing companies by ''Fortune'' in both 2008 and 2009 and one of America's top companies by ''Forbes'' in 2009.

References

External links

* {{authority control Energy companies of the United States Companies based in Houston Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Energy companies established in 1862 Oilfield services companies 1862 establishments in the United States