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Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. Business Information, Profile, and History

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Company Perspectives

CB&I is a global engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) company specializing in lump-sum, turnkey projects for customers that produce, process, store and distribute the world's natural resources. We serve a number of key industries, including oil and gas, petrochemical and chemical, power, water and wastewater, and metals and mining. For more than a century, we've built upon our technical capabilities, our expertise and our financial strength to develop a comprehensive package of EPC services and technologies. Our in-depth knowledge of our customers' business and our history of proven results have made CB&I a trusted name in the industry.

History of Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V.

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. is a global leader in the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) business. While no longer a maker of bridges or iron products, the company has decades of experience fabricating large steel vessels for water, chemicals, and gases. It has grown into a vertically-integrated supplier for all phases of oil and natural gas production.

The company is known for its fixed-price bids that offer clients security from cost overruns while providing an incentive for CB&I to control costs. Another distinction is its preference for using its own traveling project specialists rather than local subcontractors. CB&I maintains sales, engineering, and fabrication operations at more than 60 offices around the world. About 90 percent of revenues were derived from the hydrocarbons industry in 2005.

From Bridges to Water Tanks

The Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, forerunner to CBI Industries, was established in 1889 through the merger of two companies. One of these companies was a Minneapolis-based engineering concern run by Horace Ebenezer Horton, who had distinguished himself by building some of the country's first metallic span bridges over the Mississippi River. The other was the Kansas City Bridge and Iron Company, operated by George Wheelock and A.M. Blodgett. In the three years before the merger, this company built more than 500 structures across the United States.

The new company relocated to Washington Heights, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, which provided easy rail transportation to the foundries and steel mills in the area. Though it took several months to relocate machinery from Kansas City, Chicago Bridge & Iron immediately began accepting jobs to build bridges.

In 1890 Chicago Bridge & Iron absorbed the operations of the Des Moines-based George E. King Bridge Company. King was an established bridge builder in Iowa, a market that Horton and his new partners had been unable to crack. Meanwhile, King was attracted to an interest in his new partners' reliable metal fabricating facility.

The demand for bridges at this time was extraordinary. In the decades after the Civil War, railroads helped to establish burgeoning rural communities. As commerce grew, demands on transportation followed. Between so many points, there were rivers, streams and gulleys, and each route required its own span.

Until that time, wooden bridges were the order of the day. While these were sturdy, they were susceptible to rot and structural failure. The answer was in iron bridges, which few foundries were equipped to design or manufacture. With demand high, Chicago Bridge & Iron won contracts to build several hundred bridges by 1893. Other structures they were contracted to build included the first metallic water towers and standpipes and a Horse Exchange Amphitheatre for the Chicago stockyards.

That year, however, irregularities in railroad financing, shoddy banking practices, and the failure of agricultural crops caused a severe four-year economic depression that nearly closed Chicago Bridge & Iron. Then, in 1897, a devastating fire destroyed nearly the entire operation. Faced with the tremendous task of rebuilding, King opted to leave the corporation to concentrate on his more profitable banking and agricultural interests. While it took Horton nearly six years to pay King off, he did emerge as the company's sole shareholder.

As the Washington Heights plant was rebuilt, work under contract was gradually brought back from other factories working under subcontract. Also, the company's water towers became extremely popular after Horton's son George Horton perfected a hemispherical tank bottom that eliminated the need for a complex tank deck. This business helped the company weather an extremely difficult period in which all sales offices outside of Chicago were closed.

By the turn of the century the company was once again on its feet and taking on its first ventures in Canada. However, a covert trade dispute waged by Canadian firms and the government convinced Horton to abandon Canada and never again do business there. His son George, however, succeeded in winning several important contacts on his own, purchasing the materials from his father's company.

The company entered 1907 on strong growth, with contracts for several hundred water tanks, hundreds of bridges, and miscellaneous structures. Later that year a second financial panic sent the American economy into a tailspin. Public funds, which municipalities used to purchase water tanks and bridges, evaporated almost over night. Contracts were canceled and, once again, Chicago Bridge & Iron was forced into retrenchment.

These conditions were made more difficult by the fact that all steel products at this time were subject to artificial shipping costs from Pittsburgh, regardless of where they were made. This prevented Chicago Bridge & Iron from competing effectively in the East. In an effort to open this new market, the company established a second facility in 1911 at Greenville, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. Horton died on July 28, 1912, leaving the business to his wife and five children. The eldest son George later emerged as leader of the company. Unencumbered by his father's anti-Canadian prejudice, George Horton quickly merged his own Canadian operations with Chicago Bridge & Iron, establishing a new factory at Bridgeburg, Ontario, near Niagara Falls. Other business arose in Cuba, where the demand was for tanks to hold molasses, water, and, later, oil. Soon afterward the company was asked to build water tanks in the shapes of a milk bottle, a pineapple, and a "peachoid." Diversifying further, Chicago Bridge & Iron was asked to build water pumping facilities for the City of Chicago.

By 1914, as the war in Europe began to heat up, the countries involved began to purchase more and more war material from American manufacturers. This energized the American economy and drastically assisted Chicago Bridge & Iron's growth. Only three years later, after the United States entered the war and many of the company's employees left for the army, Chicago Bridge & Iron received hundreds of war-related orders, including one to build 150 5,000-ton barges.

A Shift to the Petroleum Industry

At the close of the war in 1919, George Horton decided not to involve his company in the reconstruction of Europe. Governments there, he was told, were not as creditworthy as Central and South American governments. This decision paid off when Chicago Bridge & Iron began taking large orders for huge oil storage tanks, first in the United States and then in Cuba, Venezuela, Aruba, and Mexico. Additional orders later came from the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, India, and China. The tremendous tank business also prompted Horton to phase out the company's bridge building business in favor of plate steel structures.

Horton made an important discovery during this time. Noting how his engineers spent so much time boring rivet holes with templates, Horton conceived of a 12-hole rivet punch, capable of boring a dozen perfectly placed rivet holes at once. This "Chi bridge Spacer" shortened production schedules, enabling the company to secure more business. Later, Horton abandoned rivets altogether, favoring leak-proof welded seams.

Meanwhile, the company experienced a brief labor strike in October 1919 when, soon after organizing, workers walked out. Queried as to why they went on strike, workers replied that their union was seeking a closed shop and better benefits. The strike was resolved after 18 days.

In 1922 Chicago Bridge & Iron purchased the rights to a "floating roof" storage system patented by a Bureau of Mines engineer named John H. Wiggins. The design allowed the tank's roof to float on the stored product, trapping the contents within and preventing losses to leakage or evaporation. Another major product for the oil industry, intended for natural gas storage, was the Hortonsphere, a spherical steel vessel capable of holding gas under great pressure.

In December 1923 the Horton Steel Works in Bridgeburg suffered a debilitating fire. During reconstruction of this plant, Chicago Bridge & Iron merged the Horton plant with another Canadian firm, Des Moines Steel. In 1929, on the strength of its tank business, Chicago Bridge & Iron absorbed the large Reeves Brothers plant in Birmingham, Alabama. Later that year, however, a stock market crash plunged the world into the Great Depression. Once again, Chicago Bridge & Iron's orders were either deferred or canceled, profits took a nosedive, and employees were laid off.

But, surviving on a trickle of work from the oil industry--namely, in the Middle East, the Dutch East Indies, and Italy--Chicago Bridge & Iron forged ahead with plans to incorporate new electric arc welding technology into its products. This new process allowed entire structures, rather than just tank bottoms and roofs, to be welded. This greatly reduced the weight of the structures, resulting in more efficient designs.

The company once again faced labor trouble in 1930 when new labor laws lifted certain restrictions on union organization of workers. When the matter came up before unrepresented workers at Chicago Bridge & Iron, the employees rejected outside labor representatives and established their own independent union. Still, the company's nomadic tank builders were left unrepresented. Local Boilermakers unions incited battles with the company's "tankees," and killed many during gun fights. The Boilermakers later agreed to negotiations which led to the establishment of an associated union for transient tank builders.

Chicago Bridge & Iron entered several new fields during the 1930s. While the Canadian plant began building heat exchangers and welded ships, the repeal in 1933 of Prohibition led to massive brewery contracts for the American plants. Once again public works projects, including work on the San Francisco Bay Bridge and the Tennessee Valley Authority, provided much needed income. Layoffs were reversed in 1934 and in the following year the company began taking on new hires. Later work included barge building and work on chemical and infant nuclear plants.

Building Landing Ship Tanks during World War II

The outbreak of war in December 1941 put Chicago Bridge & Iron on a war footing. By agreement with the government the company was assigned to build drydocks and ships, for which it purchased land in Morgan City, Louisiana. In January of 1942 Chicago Bridge & Iron took control of a Pacific yard at Eureka, California, and later established facilities in Newburgh, New York, and Seneca, Illinois. As construction commenced at these sights, entire families were relocated from the company's other locations. Employment ballooned from 4,000 employees in 1941 to 20,000 the following year.

The company's first contract was for 40 Landing Ship Tanks, or LSTs, which were designed to deliver heavy mobile machinery from ships to beachheads. Construction began on LSTs immediately. In fact, ships were built as the yard was built, and few of the employees were trained shipbuilders. Many learned their jobs as they went. The company also built drydocks, capable of lifting 100,000-ton ships out of the water for repairs, and underground fuel storage facilities at Pearl Harbor and, near the end of the war, in Subic Bay in the Philippines.

As the war drew to a close, Chicago Bridge & Iron was highly regarded for its excellent production schedule and cost control. After building 157 LSTs, George Horton reminded employees in February of 1945 that war production was ending and that, "a contractor without contracts does not amount to much." A month later, Horton was killed in a car accident. The company's directors, eager to prevent ruinous disorganization, elected George Horton's younger brother Horace president of the company, and career engineer Merle Trees chairman of the board.

Later that year, John Wiggins announced that he was terminating his design and consulting agreements with Chicago Bridge & Iron and going to work for a rival, the General American Transportation Corporation. This threatened to knock the company out of its most profitable peacetime line at precisely the wrong moment. Trees issued a challenge to his engineers to develop an improved floating roof technology free of Wiggins' patent. Operating under a short deadline, the engineers succeeded in designing an original Horton model.

Postwar Challenges

The company entered the postwar period in very solid financial condition, holding no bank loans. Market conditions were favorable for strong growth, owing to pent-up demand for public works and industrial projects. Chicago Bridge & Iron received orders for a variety of its standard products--water and oil tanks--but also was asked to construct pressure and containment vessels for the emerging nuclear testing and power industries.

But the company faced two serious impediments to postwar business. First, few companies could find enough skilled draftsmen to design these products. While some talent could be hired away from competitors, the company's design offices still could not keep up. There also was a shortage of experienced construction engineers. And, secondly, CB&I, as it had become known, was faced with recurrent shortages of steel, which was still being rationed in monthly allocations. During the war, however, the Geneva steel mill that had been established at Salt Lake City lacked a large local customer base. Seeing it as the perfect supplier, the company immediately began construction of a full-scale fabricating plant at that site.

By March 1946, the company encountered a boat glut. The company's shipbuilding unit, which employed 12,000 workers during the war, was down to 12 employees. However, growth in overseas markets more than made up for this loss. With tax incentives to invest in Latin America, as part of the Roosevelt Administration's "Good Neighbor Policy," CB&I established subsidiaries in Venezuela and Brazil. Later, the company decided to aggressively pursue foreign licensing to boost sales and protect patent rights. Licensees were established throughout the world, including France, Germany, Japan, and Australia.

In 1948, the first year of postwar profitability, CB&I won a contract to modernize U.S. Steel's massive South Chicago Works. A few years later the company was invited to build an enormous tank farm in Aden for British Petroleum, which later led to the establishment of a British subsidiary.

Employees ran on nine-hour days and six-day work weeks. As the job backlog lightened up, this was scaled back to eight hours and five days, avoiding layoffs. By 1953, however, the backlog had disappeared, forcing the company to institute layoffs and a "necessary absence" plan.

Serving Emerging Industries in the Atomic Age

By 1954 CB&I had become involved in cryogenics, hydroelectric and nuclear power, and liquified natural gas, and, later, built wind tunnels and vessels for the space program. Returning to bridgework after nearly 40 years, the company built caissons for the construction of the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan which would connect the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of the state for the first time.

Also in 1954, Merle Trees died. He was replaced as chairman by Horace B. Horton, who was himself replaced as president by E. E. Michaels. Michaels was well suited to lead the company at that time. He was an experienced corporate diplomat, capable of maintaining a balance between two opposing ownership forces within the company. He was also, however, a good manager, unafraid to assert his own views.

With the discovery of oil in Western Canada, CB&I established a facility in North Lethbridge, Alberta, where it manufactured vessels for the oil, gas, pulp, and fertilizer industries. In 1957 the company became involved in sewage projects. In 1958, as international expansion continued, the company established an Argentine subsidiary, Cometarsa, which failed to perform well and was sold nine years later. Still, massive water desalinization projects, particularly one in Kuwait, were undertaken in partnership with G. & J. Weir Ltd. of Glasgow. Building on its aeronautical business, CB&I acquired an interest in the Minneapolis-based FluiDyne Engineering Corporation.

In September 1959 Horace B. Horton died and was succeeded as chairman by his son Arthur. Later, in 1962, E. E. Michaels resigned to run, unsuccessfully, as a Republican for the U.S. House of Representatives. He was replaced by Josh Clarke.

In 1960 the company established subsidiaries in Germany and Holland and, later, in Mexico. The company also restructured its Australian interests, forming Chicago Bridge Lennox with its Australian licensee, but later dissolved it in favor of a wholly owned company called CBI Constructors. Additional operations were later established in the Philippines, Italy, and Japan. Back home, in 1961, CB&I broke ground on a new headquarters building in Oak Brook, Illinois. Two years later, recognizing the tremendous growth the company had experienced, the Board of Directors decided to take the company public.

In 1963 CB&I won a contract to build major sections of the large Mangla Dam in Pakistan. This successful project led to work on a second, the Tarbela Dam, in 1971. In 1964 CB&I acquired three engineering companies, Rebikoff Oceanics, Copeland Process, a specialist in industrial waste disposal, and Walker Process, which built equipment for water and sewage plants. And, to keep up with the growing volume of nuclear plant projects, CB&I opened a new facility specifically for supplying nuclear reactors in Memphis. The company continued to bolster its engineering ranks in 1967, when it set up a new research lab at Plainfield, Illinois, and staffed it with some of the best engineers in the world.

During the 1960s, the liquified natural gas (LNG) business began to take off. As a pioneer in engineering these projects, CB&I became the industry leader in vessel manufacturing, both for land storage and on ships. In 1969 the company formed a gas transportation subsidiary called American LNG. That year CB&I also built an enormous oil storage and loading device designed to sit on the seafloor. This project, Khazzan Dubai, was built for the Gulf Sheikdom of Dubai, and was nominated for honors by the National Society of Professional Engineers. Unfortunately the project's competitors were the Apollo space program and the Boeing 747.

John Horton, son of Horace B. Horton, who succeeded Josh Clarke as president in 1968, stepped down after only 11 months in office to pursue personal interests. He was replaced as president by Marvin Mitchell, a career CB&I engineer. Early in 1973 Arthur Horton, who had been inflicted with polio as a boy, died after a long illness. Mitchell succeeded him as chairman of the company.

The Arab oil embargo in 1973 and 1974 was a tremendous boon to the company. Oil consumers, used to frequent oil deliveries, had little storage capacity for oil, which was available only when you could get it. With sales up 80 percent in 1973, CB&I was again awash in a backlog of orders. The energy crisis caused by the embargo set into motion plans to exploit huge oil reserves in Alaska. Here, too, CB&I was asked to supply equipment and storage tanks for the Alyeska Pipeline Company between Barrow and Valdez. The company also opened a new facility at Prairieville, Louisiana, to service projects in the Gulf of Mexico and train underwater welders.

But, after the embargo ended, Mitchell grew weary of the cyclical and unpredictable nature of the energy business. He moved to diversify the company and in 1975 purchased Virginia-based Fairmac Corporation, a real estate developer. In 1977, however, CB&I unveiled a more economical process of extracting carbon dioxide from LNG, called Cryex. This patented process only helped to push CB&I further into the energy business. In 1979 CB&I took control of Circle Bar, an oil drilling company based in New Orleans.

Going Public in 1977

CBI became a public company in 1977 with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Management affected a corporate reorganization two years later, creating a holding company called CBI Industries, which took ownership of Chicago Bridge & Iron. The name change was deemed necessary because the company was no longer based in Chicago, did not build bridges, and had not used iron for decades.

CBI won new contracts for large petroleum projects in the North Sea and in Abu Dhabi and, in 1983, once again tried to diversify. Its search ended in 1984 when the company purchased Liquid Carbonic, the world's leading supplier of carbon dioxide, from Houston Natural Gas for $407 million. Liquid Carbonic had been founded in 1888 to supply carbon dioxide gas to soda fountains and soft drink bottlers. In 1926 the company began commercial sales of solid carbon dioxide, or "dry ice." After World War II, Liquid Carbonic branched into frozen food technologies and commercial sales of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon which, unlike carbon dioxide, are extracted from the atmosphere.

Marvin Mitchell resigned as chairman of CBI upon turning 65 in 1981 and was replaced by Bill Pogue. Pogue served as chairman until 1989 when he, too, turned 65. Pogue was succeeded by John Jones, a former vice-chairman and chief operating officer.

After a difficult period of adjustment during the mid-1980s, caused primarily by cyclical retrenchment in the energy construction business, CBI entered the 1990s with a stronger, revitalized organization built on more than 100 years of successful projects. While Liquid Carbonic had helped to insulate CBI from the ups and downs of energy development, it remained to be seen whether the company would continue to pursue additional businesses that were equally stable.

In fact, CBI thrived under an aggressive diversification strategy led by Jones, noted Forbes. It began supplying equipment for a number of different industries while regaining some of its old dominance in the steel water tank market. It also invested heavily to increase capacity at Liquid Carbonic while developing new agricultural applications for carbon dioxide.

With a booming demand for carbon dioxide, particularly in South America, the Liquid Carbonic unit made a tempting acquisition target for rivals. Airgas unsuccessfully tried to buy it for $1.5 billion in 1994. In spite of numerous anti-takeover defenses instituted since the late 1980s, CBI itself was taken over in 1996 by industrial gasses giant Praxair Inc.

By this time, CBI had annual sales of $2 billion. An interesting sideline launched in the mid-1990s was the construction of giant floating casino vessels, drawing on the company's experience with steel-plate fabrication.

Spun Off in 1997

Praxair was primarily interested in the gasses business and sold the other units. Statia Terminals, N.V., which CBI had acquired in 1986, was sold to an investor group. In 1997, CBI was spun off in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. At this time, a Netherlands corporation, Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (CB&I), was created as the parent company for the U.S. business, still called Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, and international operations under the name Chicago Bridge & Iron Company B.V. The Kankakee, Illinois, plant was shut down as fabrication operations were consolidated in the oil industry center of Houston. The North American administrative offices were relocated from Plainfield, Illinois, to the Houston area in 2001.

As the energy industry struggled in the late 1990s, CB&I invested in high tech industries in 1999. It acquired XL Systems, Inc., a designer and builder of thermal vacuum test facilities. It also created a new UltraPure Systems business unit to provide high purity process piping systems, but it left this business after a couple of years following the burst of the tech bubble.

Vertical Integration Path in 2000 and Beyond

CB&I's 1999 revenues were $675 million. The company added another digit to its top line when it acquired Howe-Baker International, L.L.C. in December 2000. This Texas-based engineering and construction firm had been established in 1947 to produce dehydrators and desalting equipment for the refining industry. In the 1960s it branched out into process design and plant fabrication. By the time of the acquisition, Howe-Baker employed 2,000 people and had annual revenues of $308 million. CB&I's total annual revenues exceeded $1 billion after the deal. The combination promised to take Howe-Baker to new international markets, while giving CB&I access to its process engineering and modular construction strengths.

In February 2001, CB&I purchased the Engineered Construction and Water divisions of Pitt-Des Moines Inc. for $84 million in cash and stock. The acquired units, based in Houston and Pittsburgh, respectively, together employed 1,000 people and had combined revenues of $244 million a year.

A series of subsequent acquisitions extended CB&I's reach into all phases of petroleum and gas production as the energy industry recovered from its late-1990s trough. The 2003 purchase of London-based John Brown Hydrocarbons Limited, which was involved in the onshore, offshore, and pipeline sectors, was a crowning achievement in the vertical integration strategy. CB&I also acquired the U.S. subsidiary of another British engineering and construction firm, Petrofac Limited, which it folded into Howe-Baker.

CB&I announced a new corporate identity in July 2003. Its new logo retained a spheroid shape in use since the 1950s. The widely used acronym "CB&I" was adopted as a master brand.

Revenues exceeded $2 billion in 2005. About 90 percent was derived from the hydrocarbons industry. One new line of business was retrofitting petrochemical plants to meet increasingly stringent emissions requirements.

The company's legal life was becoming complicated. In January 2005, the Federal Trade Commission upheld an earlier administrative law judge ruling that its four-year-old acquisition of units from Pitt-Des Moines Inc. had violated antitrust law. The FTC said it would require CB&I to spin off some of its assets to restore domestic competition. The decision surprised some observers, as it related to a merger that had closed four years earlier after passing the usual regulatory review. CB&I appealed the ruling.

The SEC launched an accounting investigation in the last half of 2005. The CB&I board later terminated CEO Gerald Glen, citing no official reason for the dismissal. Glenn had led the company since its 1997 IPO. The company's chief operating officer was also let go.

Revenues were expected to be $2.8 billion for 2006. In an environment of soaring oil and natural gas prices, CB&I continued to focus on energy infrastructure. Among its projects around the globe were a couple of very large contracts to design and build two separate LNG import terminals in the U.K. A $1 billion LNG terminal was being built in Texas.

Principal Subsidiaries

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company B.V.; Chicago Bridge & Iron (Antilles) N.V.; Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (USA); Lealand Finance Company B.V.

Principal Divisions

Process & Technology; Low Temperature/Cryogenic Tanks and Systems; Pressure Vessels; Standard Tanks; Specialty and Other Structures; Repairs and Turnarounds.

Principal Competitors

Denali Inc.; Kingspan Group plc; Matrix Service Company.

Related information about Chicago

41°53N 87°38W, pop (2000e) 2 896 000. Third largest city in the USA; seat of Cook Co, NE Illinois, on L Michigan; built on the site of Fort Dearborn; settled in the 1830s; city status, 1837; developed as a result of its strategic position linking the Great Lakes with the Mississippi R after the Illinois and Michigan Canal was completed (1848), and after the railway to the E was opened (1853); much of the city destroyed by fire, 1871; notorious gangster activity in the Prohibition years (1920s), notably by Al Capone; now the major industrial, commercial, financial and cultural centre for the US interior; electrical machinery, metal products, steel (one-quarter of the nation's steel produced in and around the city), textiles, chemicals, food products, printing and publishing; commerce and finance centred upon ‘The Loop’ area; transport centre of the USA, with one of the busiest airports in the world; major rail network and inland port; seven universities; Sears Tower (1974), the world's second tallest building in 1999 (443 m/1454 ft); professional teams, Cubs, White Sox (baseball), Bulls (basketball), Bears (football), Black Hawks (ice hockey); Lyric Opera, Art Institute, Museum of Science and Industry, Shedd Aquarium, Planetarium; Chicago Film Festival (Nov).

) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, as well as the third-most populous city in the United States, with nearly 2.9 million people. Located along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, it is the seat of Cook County.

Chicago is known as the "Second City," the "Windy City," the "City of Big Shoulders", and "Chi-town". When combined with its suburbs and nine surrounding counties in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana, the greater metropolitan area known as Chicagoland encompasses a population greater than 9.4 million, making it the third largest in the United States.

Since its 1833 founding as a frontier town of the Old Northwest, Chicago has grown into one of the ten most influential world cities.The World According to GaWC (2006). Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network. Chicago today is the financial, economic, and cultural capital of the Midwest, and is recognized as a major transportation, business, and architectural center.

Origin of name

The indigenous Potawatomi tribe called the marshes on which Chicago was later built "Checagou (prounounced 'She-Ka-Gan')," which translates to "wild onion" or "garlic." Before Chicago's founding, the name of the river was spelled several ways, such as "Chetagu" or "Shikago."

The origin of Chicago's nickname as "The Windy City" is debated (see List of nicknames for Chicago). The most common explanation had been that the phrase was created by New York newspapers in the 1880s during a national debate over which city would host the 1893 World's Fair, making reference to the long-windedness of the city's supporters.

History

During the mid-1700s, the Chicago area was inhabited primarily by Potawatomis, who took the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox people. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Fort Dearborn Massacre. The Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi later ceded the land to the United States in the Treaty of St. Louis of 1816. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of 350, and within seven years it grew to a population of over 4,000. The City of Chicago was incorporated on March 4, 1837.

Starting in 1848, the city became an important transportation link between the eastern and western United States with the opening of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, Chicago's first railway, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which allowed shipping from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River. With a flourishing economy that brought many new residents from rural communities and immigrants from Europe, Chicago grew from a city of 299,000 to nearly 1.7 million between 1870 and 1900. The city's manufacturing and retail sectors dominated the Midwest and greatly influenced the American economy, with the Union Stock Yards' dominating the packing trade.

After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Chicago experienced rapid rebuilding and growth.Bruegmann, Robert (2004-2005). Built Environment of the Chicago Region. Encyclopedia of Chicago (online version). During Chicago's rebuilding period, the first skyscraper was constructed in 1885 using steel-skeleton construction. In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus.

The city was the site of labor conflicts and unrest during this period, which included the Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886. Concern for social problems among Chicago's lower classes led to the founding of Hull House in 1889, of which Jane Addams was a co-founder. The city also invested in many large, finely-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities.

Lake Michigan - the primary source of fresh water for the city - was already highly polluted from population growth and the rapidly growing industries in and around Chicago. The city responded by embarking on several large public works projects, including a large excavation project which built tunnels below Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs which were two miles (3 km) off the lakeshore. Beginning in 1855, Chicago constructed the first comprehensive sewer system in the U.S. In 1900, the problem of sewage was solved by reversing the direction of the River's flow with the construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal leading to the Illinois River.

The 1920s brought international notoriety to Chicago as gangsters such as Al Capone battled each other and the law during the Prohibition era. Nevertheless, the 1920s also saw a large increase in Chicago industry as well as the first arrivals of the Great Migration that would lead thousands of mostly Southern blacks to Chicago and other Northern cities. On December 2, 1942, the world's first controlled nuclear reaction was conducted at the University of Chicago as part of the top secret Manhattan Project.

Mayor Richard J. Nevertheless, the city hosted the 1968 Democratic National Convention and saw the construction of the Sears Tower (which became the world's tallest building), McCormick Place, and O'Hare Airport. In 1983 Harold Washington became the first African American to be elected to the office of mayor; As a part of its environmentally friendly image, Chicago declared Peregrine Falcon, a protected species that started to build its nests in Chicago skyscrapers, the official bird of the city in 1999.Peregrine Falcon: Official City Bird of Chicago.

Geography and climate

Located in northeastern Illinois at the southwestern tip of Lake Michigan, Chicago's official geographic coordinates are . It sits on the continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. The city lies beside Lake Michigan and two rivers: the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side flow entirely or partially through Chicago. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal connects the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River, which runs to the west of the city.

When Chicago was founded in the 1830s, most of the early building began around the mouth of the Chicago River. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Chicago has a total area of 234.0 square miles (606.1 km²), of which 227.1 square miles (588.3 km²) is land and 6.9 square miles (17.8 km²) is water.

Since the first recorded earthquake in 1804,200th Anniversary of the First Recorded Chicago Earthquake (9/14/2004). More recently, an earthquake with an epicenter in Ottawa, Illinois, registering about 4.3 on the Richter scale shook some buildings in Chicago on June 28, 2004.

Climate

Chicago, like much of the Midwest, has a climate that is prone to extreme, often volatile, weather conditions. Weatherbase. According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of 105 °F (40 °C) was recorded on July 24, 1934. The lowest temperature of −27 °F (−32 °C) degrees was recorded on January 20, 1985.

Chicago's yearly precipitation averages about 38 inches (965 mm). Chicago's highest one day precipitation total was 6.49 inches (164 mm) which fell on August 14, 1987.

Cityscape

[[Image:DowntownChicagoILatNight.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Downtown Chicago along the
Chicago River looking northeast]]
The city?s urban context is organized within a grid pattern. The Northwest and Southwest sides of the city area also referenced with frequency, though they tend to be subsumed under one of the three aforementioned areas.

Since the first steel-framed high-rise building of the world was constructed in the city in 1885, Chicago has been known for the skyscraper.Chicago (2004). Chicago Public Library. Today, many high-rise buildings are located in the downtown area, notably in the Loop and along the lakefront and the Chicago River. The three tallest buildings are the Sears Tower (also the tallest building in North America), the Aon Center, and the John Hancock Center. There are clusters of industrialized areas, including the lakefront near the Indiana border, the area south of Midway Airport, and the banks of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Future building sites that will contribute to Chicago's skyline include Waterview Tower, 400 North Lake Shore Drive, and the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

Along Lake Shore Drive, parks line the lakefront. The most notable of these parks are Grant Park and Millennium Park, which border the east end of the Loop, Lincoln Park on the north side, and Jackson Park in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the south side. Interspersed within this system of parks are 31 beaches, a zoo and several bird sanctuaries, McCormick Place Convention Center, Navy Pier, Soldier Field, the Museum Campus, and a water treatment plant.

Pushed along by the national real estate boom in recent years, Chicago has seen an unprecedented surge in skyscraper construction, most notably in the area directly south (South Loop) and north (River North) of the Loop. However, these homes (and others throughout Chicago) have been all but demolished in Chicago's recent movement to replace public housing with mixed-income, progressive new housing developments, known as the Plan for Transformation (see The Chicago Housing Authority).

Regardless of this, many areas of the South Side, despite perceptions to the otherwise, are stable, middle-class, and diverse. U.S. Bureau of the Census (accessed April 20, 2006).

As one of the largest cities in North America, the population of Chicago is cosmopolitan. This encompasses about one-fifth of the entire population of the state of Illinois and 1% of the population of the United States. The population density was 12,750.3 people per square mile (4,923.0/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 36.39% Black or African American, 31.32% White, 26.02% Hispanic or Latino, 4.33% Asian and Pacific Islander, 1.64% from two or more races, 0.15% Native American, and 0.15% from other races.Chicago Demographics (2003). US Census Bureau The city itself makes up 23.3% percent of the total population of Illinois, down from a high of 44.3% in 1930.

Like most large American cities, Chicago is a minority-majority city.

Of the 1,061,928 households, 28.9% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.1% were married couples living together, 18.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.4% were non-families. Of the total population, 28.1% of those under the age of 18 and 15.5% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Chicago has a large Irish-American population on its South Side. The majority of African Americans are also located on Chicago's South Side. Other European ethnic groups are the Germans, Italians and Polish. Chicago has the largest population of Swedish-Americans of any city in the U.S. with approximately 123,000. After the Great Chicago Fire, many Swedish carpenters helped to rebuild the city, which led to the saying the Swedes built Chicago.Chicago Stories - Swedes in Chicago (2006). Chicago is the home of the Evangelical Covenant Church www.covchurch.org..

Chicago has the largest Bulgarian community in the world (outside Bulgaria) with more than 150,000 Bulgarians living in the city. The city has the largest ethnically Polish population outside of Poland, making it one of the most important Polonia centers.America the diverse - Chicago's Polish neighborhoods (5/15/2005). USA Weekend Magazine. Chicago is also the second-largest SerbianSerbian Delegation (4/30/2004). WTCC Weekly News at www.wtcc.org. and Lithuanian city,Cities Guide Chicago - A hard-knock life (2006). Economist.com. and the third largest Greek city in the world.Chicago Stories - The Greeks in Chicago (2006). Accessed June 5, 2006. Chicago has a large Romanian-American community with more than 100,000,About Us. The city is home to the seat of the head of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV, the Evangelical Covenant Church www.covchurch.org., and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America headquarters.Contact Us. ELCA.org.

The Chicago Metropolitan area is also a major center for Indian-Americans and South Asians. Chicago has the third-largest South Asian population in the United States, after New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. The Devon Avenue corridor on Chicago's north side is one of the largest South Asian neighborhoods in North America. Chicago also has the second-largest Puerto Rican population in the United States after New York City.

Population

Chicago's 2006 population of estimate of 2,873,790 is debated by some since there has been signifcant construction in the city in the 6 years since the 2000 census.

Over 1/3 of the population of Chicago is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods of the city (from Rogers Park in the north to Hyde Park in the south). This makes Chicago's lakefront the most densely populated area in the United States outside of New York City. www.demographia.com/db-chi-nhd2000.htm

Economy

Chicago has the third largest gross metropolitan product in the nation - approximately $390 billion. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States due to its high level of diversification.www.worldbusinesschicago.com/ about/upload/20ChicagoSunTimes6-23-03.pdf Moody's: Chicago's Economy Most Balanced in US (1/23/2003). Accessed 08/22/2006 from 'Site Selection Online' at www.siteselection.com/issues/2006/mar/p176/.

Chicago is a major financial center with the second largest central business district in the U.S. The city is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve). The city is also home to four major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"). Chicago and the surrounding areas also house many major brokerage firms and insurance companies, such as Allstate Corporation and Zurich North America. Accessed from 'SAGE Publications' at edq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/18/1/10?ijkey=50c44cb29d68315499a2aa3771131b328064bf28&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha.

Manufacturing (which includes chemicals, metal, machinery, and consumer electronics), printing and publishing, and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Encyclopedia of Chicago (online edition). Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare Financial Services division of General Electric. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and the railroads in the 1800s made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. Chicago is third in the U.S. behind Las Vegas and Orlando as far as the number of conventions hosted annually.Chicago falls to 3rd in U.S. convention industry (4/26/2006). Crain's Chicago Business. In addition, Chicago is home to eleven Fortune 500 companies, while the metropolitan area hosts an additional 21 Fortune 500 companies.Fortune 500 2006 - Illinois. CBRE - CB Richard Ellis, at www.cbre.com/NR/rdonlyres/9326419A-60CC-47BC-9960-448BD4B32C52/0/MarketOutlook06FINAL.pdf.
In 2006, Chicago placed 10th on the UBS list of the world's richest cities.

Law and government

Chicago is the county seat of Cook County. The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years. In addition to the mayor, Chicago's two other citywide elected officials are the clerk and the treasurer.

The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 alderman, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions.

During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization dominated by ethnic ward-healers. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States, with Chicago's Democratic vote totals' leading the state of Illinois to be "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent the rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.

Former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's mastery of machine politics preserved the Chicago Democratic Machine long after the demise of similar machines in other large American cities. During much of that time the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. Chicago Tribune, found at qrc.depaul.edu/djabon/Articles/ChicagoCrime20030101.htm. After adopting crime-fighting techniques recommended by the New York Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department in 2004,David Heinzmann and Rex W. City murder toll lowest in decades Chicago Tribune. Chicago recorded 448 homicides, the lowest total since 1965. They have prompted some calls of discrimination since these cameras tend to be prevalent in Black and Latino communities with higher than average crime rates.

The FBI often does not accept crime statistics submitted by the Chicago Police Department, which tallies data differently than other cities. As a result, Chicago is often omitted from studies like Morgan Quitno's annual "Safest/Most Dangerous City" survey.Locy, Toni (6/7/2005). USA Today.

Education

Public education

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the school district that controls over 600 public elementary and high schools in Chicago. Chicago Public Schools at www.cps.k12.il.us/AtAGlance.html. is led by CEO Arne Duncan. The CPS also includes several selective-admission magnet schools, such as Whitney Young Magnet High School, William Jones College Preparatory, Walter Payton College Prep, Lane Tech College Prep, and Northside College Preparatory High School.

Like many urban U.S. school districts, CPS suffered many problems throughout the latter half of the 20th century, including overcrowding, underfunding, mismanagement and a high dropout rate. In 1987, then U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett named the Chicago Public Schools as the "worst in the nation." Several school reform initiatives have since been undertaken to improve the system's performance. Reforms have included a system of Local School Councils, Charter Schools, and efforts to end social promotion. The city is home to two of America's top research universities: University of Chicago in Hyde Park on the South Side and Northwestern University in northside suburb Evanston. Several private Catholic universities are located in Chicago, such as DePaul University (the largest private university in Illinois), St. Xavier University, and Loyola University.

The University of Illinois at Chicago is the city's largest university and features the nation's largest medical school. The Illinois Institute of Technology in Bronzeville has renowned engineering and architecture programs. Dominican University, outside Chicago in River Forest, teaches many library courses at the Chicago Public Library's Harold Washington Building. North Park University, a small Christian liberal arts university affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church, is located on the northwest side in the North Park neighborhood. These accredited seminaries are joined in a consortium known as the Association of Chicago Theological Schools (ACTS).Association of Chicago Theological Schools The Moody Bible Institute is near downtown. Chicago State University and Northeastern Illinois University are other state universities in Chicago. The city also has a large community college system known as the City Colleges of Chicago. Additionally, there are several smaller colleges noted for their fine arts education programs - Roosevelt University, Columbia College Chicago, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Culture

Chicago has a major theater scene, and is the birthplace of modern improvisational comedy. The city is home to two renowned comedy troupes: The Second City and Steppenwolf Theatre Company (on the city's north side), the Goodman Theatre, and the Victory Gardens Theater. Other theatres, from nearly 100 storefront performance spaces such as the Strawdog Theatre Company in the Lakeview area to landmark downtown houses such as the Chicago Theatre, present a variety of plays and musicals. The city is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Joffrey Ballet, and several modern and jazz dance troupes. The city's classical music scene is also home to companies including Music of the Baroque, Chicago Opera Theater, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Chicago a cappella, and many others.

Chicago is known for its Chicago blues, Chicago soul, Jazz, and Gospel. The city is the birthplace of the House style of music, and is the site of an influential Hip-Hop scene. In the 1980s the city was a center for industrial, punk and new wave (spawning the famous Wax Trax! label); There is a flourishing independent rock scene, including the recent explosion of Chicago emo acts, with multiple festivals featuring various acts each year (Lollapalooza, the Intonation Music Festival and Pitchfork Music Festival being the most prominent).

Chicago has several signature foods which reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. These include the deep-dish pizza and the Chicago hot dog, which is almost always made of Vienna Beef and loaded with mustard, chopped onion, sliced tomato, pickle relish, celery salt, sport peppers, and a dill pickle spear. Chicago is also known for Italian Beef sandwiches and the Maxwell Street Polish (always served topped with grilled onions and mustard).

Sites of interest

In 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a 10-acre (4-hectare) lakefront park surrounding three of the city's main museums: the Adler Planetarium, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. Grant Park is also home to Chicago's other major downtown museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, which is partnered with The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, located in the Hyde Park neighborhood, is housed in the only in-place surviving building from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Navy Pier, a 3000-foot (900 m) pier housing restaurants, shops, museums, exhibition halls, auditoriums, and a 150-foot-tall (45 m) Ferris wheel, is located north of Grant Park on the lakefront.

The Chicago Cultural Center, built in 1897 as Chicago's first permanent public library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries, and exhibit halls. The Oriental Institute, part of the University of Chicago, has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts, while the Freedom Museum is dedicated to exploring and explaining the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Other museums and galleries in Chicago are the Chicago History Museum, DuSable Museum of African-American History, Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

Millennium Park is a rebuilt section of Grant Park that was planned for unveiling at the turn of the 21st century, though it was delayed for several years.

Media

Chicago is the third-largest market in the U.S. (after New York City and Los Angeles).Nielsen Media - DMA Listing (September 24, 2005). All of the major American television networks have subsidiaries in Chicago. WGN-TV, which is owned by the Tribune Company, is carried (with some programming differences) as "Superstation WGN" on cable nation-wide. The city is also the home of the Oprah Winfrey Show, while Chicago Public Radio produces programs such as PRI's This American Life and NPR's Wait Wait... Other television news programs include ABC 7, NBC 5, CBS 2, FOX 32, WGN 9, and CLTV

There are two major daily newspapers published in Chicago: the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, with the former having the larger circulation. The Chicago Cubs of the National League play at Wrigley Field, which is located in the North Side neighborhood of Lakeview, commonly referred to as "Wrigleyville." The Chicago White Sox of the American League play at U.S. Cellular Field, in the city's South Side Bridgeport neighborhood.
The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association is one of the world's most recognized basketball teams. The Bulls play at the United Center on Chicago's Near West side. The Chicago Bears of the National Football League play at Soldier Field. The Chicago Fire, members of Major League Soccer, won one league and three US Open Cups since 1997. Other major league sports teams in Chicago include the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League and the Chicago Sky of the Women's National Basketball Association

The city has offered an official Olympic bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, and is considered a strong contender among the three candidate American cities.Kathy Bergen and Gary Washburn (5/11/2006). Chicago Tribune. Chicago also hosted the 1959 Pan American Games, and Gay Games VII in 2006.

Infrastructure

Health and medicine

Chicago is home to the Illinois Medical District on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois at Chicago medical center, and John H.
The University of Chicago operates the University of Chicago Hospitals, which was ranked the fourteenth best hospital in the country by U.S. News and World Report. It is the only hospital in Illinois ever to be included in the magazine's "Honor Roll" of the best hospitals in the United States.

The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the largest medical school in the United States (1300 students, including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana-Champaign).About the College - A Brief History of the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine (2005). UIC College of Medicine at www.uic.edu/depts/mcam/history.shtml. Chicago is also home to other nationally recognized medical schools including Rush Medical College, the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago, and the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University. In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.

The leading healthcare informatics organizations are located in Chicago, including the American Medical Informatics Association and the Health Information Management Systems Society. These organizations include as members many healthcare IT vendors and the CIO/VP Technology leaders of most American healthcare operations. The American College of Surgeons, American Dental Association, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, and the American Osteopathic Association are based in the city. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.
Madigan, p.52. Additionally, it is the only city in North America in which all six Class I railroads meet.Appendix C: Regional Freight Transportation Profiles. U.S. Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration (April 2005).

Seven interstate highways run through Chicago. Other named highway segments are the Stevenson Expressway (I-55) and Eisenhower Expressway (I-290).

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit system known locally as the 'L' (for "elevated"), which among other things provides rail service from downtown to Midway and O'Hare airports. The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) provides service in forty surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city.

Metra operates commuter rail service in Chicago and its suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares the railway with the South Shore Line's NICTD Northwest Indiana Commuter Rail Service, which accesses Gary/Chicago Airport. Pace operates a primarily-suburban bus service that also offers some routes into Chicago.

Chicago is served by Midway Airport on the south side and O'Hare International Airport, one of the world's busiest airports, on the far northwest. Gary/Chicago International Airport, located in nearby Gary, Indiana, serves as the third Chicagoland airport. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state.

Chronology

Key Dates
1888 Liquid Carbonic founded to supply carbon dioxide gas to soda fountains and soft drink bottlers.
1889 Chicago Bridge & Iron is founded through the merger of two Midwest bridge-building businesses.
1893 The company makes its first standpipe.
1923 The Hortonsphere® pressurized vessel debuts.
1966 The company builds its first offshore oil storage structure, the Molly Brown.
1972 The Chicago plant is relocated to Kankakee, Illinois.
1976 CB&I builds storage tanks for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
1977 The company goes public on the New York Stock Exchange.
1979 The CBI Industries, Inc., holding company is established.
1984 CBI acquires Liquid Carbonic, a leading global supplier of carbon dioxide.
1996 CBI is acquired by industrial gasses giant Praxair Inc.
1997 Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (CB&I) is spun off in a public offering; U.S. fabrication operations are consolidated in Houston.
2001 CB&I acquires rival fluid tank construction unit of Pitt-Des Moines Inc.
2003 The corporate identity is updated; John Brown Hydrocarbons Ltd. is acquired.

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