Another oil firm puts base overseas

Another oil firm puts base overseas
Weatherford says Switzerland near key markets

By BRETT CLANTON Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 11, 2008, 11:47PM

The chief executive of Weatherford International said Thursday he and his company headquarters will move from Houston to Switzerland, joining at least two other top Houston oil services executives in seeking closer proximity to emerging oil producing regions overseas.

Halliburton Co. relocated its top executives to a Dubai headquarters in 2007 and offshore driller Transocean has announced plans to move to Geneva.

Houston will become a regional headquarters for Weatherford, and could lose perhaps dozens of managers and engineers to a new office in Geneva.

Yet the company's hometown will still be a key hub for its North American operations and should not be greatly affected by the change, Weatherford Chairman and CEO Bernard J. Duroc-Danner said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.

U.S. oil field services firms also worry that the incoming Democratic administration and more solidly Democratic Congress will raise corporate taxes, and that may have spurred some companies to set up offices abroad, said Neal Dingmann, an industry analyst with Dahlman Rose & Co. in Houston.

more....
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6160806.html