Williams Companies

In 1908, brothers David and Miller Williams started a sidewalk-building business, Williams Brothers Company, in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It built its first welded metal pipeline in 1916 and moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1918.⁠[1]

The company began building pipelines abroad in 1923, built two wartime pipelines to supply fuel to the East Coast in 1943, and its stock began trading over the counter in 1957. A 1966 leveraged buyout of a pipeline began its shift from builder to owner and operator. After diversifying in the 1970s, it refocused on energy and was renamed The Williams Companies, Inc.⁠[2]

In 1983, Williams acquired Northwest Energy Company, adding to its interstate natural gas pipeline network. Its Northwest Pipeline system traces back to a 1,500-mile line completed by Pacific Northwest Pipeline Corp. in 1956; as of August 2026 it was a nearly 4,000-mile bidirectional network spanning six Western states, with about 3.8 million dekatherms per day of peak design capacity.⁠[3]

On January 5, 1995, Williams sold the network services operations of its telecommunications subsidiary, Williams Telecommunications Group, to LDDS Communications for $2.5 billion in cash. Through a cash tender offer completed in January 1995, it acquired about 60 percent of Transco Energy’s common stock, and Transco became a wholly owned subsidiary effective May 1, 1995, in a transaction valued at more than $3 billion.⁠[4]

In 1997, Williams agreed to acquire fellow Tulsa company MAPCO in a $2.7 billion stock-for-stock merger, exchanging 0.8325 Williams shares for each MAPCO share. MAPCO owned the propane marketer Thermogas, natural gas liquids systems including the Mid-America Pipeline, and refineries in Alaska and Memphis.⁠[5]

Williams spun off Williams Communications in 2001. In April 2002, Williams Communications Group, carrying about $6 billion in debt it could not service, filed for bankruptcy protection; Williams held a $2.27 billion claim.⁠[6]

Steve Malcolm became chief executive officer of Williams in January 2002 and was named chairman in May 2002.⁠[7]

In February 2002, some banks considered Williams Communications in default of its loan agreements. Williams said its maximum exposure “would not exceed the previously disclosed pre-tax $2.2 billion” and that it was prepared to expand asset sales and, if required, issue equity. Its shares fell about 10 percent in early trading.⁠[8]

In July 2002, Williams closed a $3.8 billion rescue package that kept it out of bankruptcy, including $1.1 billion of secured funding from CitigroupCitigroupCitigroup Inc. is a global diversified financial services holding company based in New York, with a history dating back to 1812.Open the full entry and a separate $900 million secured arrangement involving Lehman Brothers and Berkshire HathawayBerkshire HathawayBerkshire Hathaway Inc. is a multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States (NYSE: BRK.A/BRK.B), with businesses spanning insurance, railroads, energy, manufacturing, and retail. Warren Buffett took control of the company in 1965 and ran it until 2025, and Greg Abel succeeded him as CEO at the start of 2026. The company long held stakes in several U.S. banks, including M&T (1991–2020), Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, which it successively reduced or exited between 2020 and 2024.Open the full entry. It also sold assets including the Mid-America and Seminole pipelines, its stake in the Jonah gas field and the Cove Point LNG terminal.⁠[9]

The Commodity Futures Trading CommissionCommodity Futures Trading CommissionThe U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is an independent federal agency created by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act of 1974 and operating since 1975 to regulate futures, options and swaps markets; it has treated bitcoin and other virtual currencies as commodities since 2015 and has been chaired since December 22, 2025 by Michael Selig.Open the full entry found that Williams and its subsidiary Williams Energy Marketing and Trading submitted false natural gas trading information, including price and volume, to firms that compile natural gas price indexes from at least January 2000 through June 2002. Under the settlement, Williams paid a $20 million civil penalty.⁠[10]

On October 12, 2010, Williams announced that chairman and CEO Steve Malcolm would retire at year-end. Alan Armstrong, president of the midstream business since 2002, succeeded him as CEO effective January 3, 2011, and Frank MacInnis became non-executive chairman.⁠[7]

On December 31, 2011, Williams completed the spin-off of its exploration and production business, distributing one WPX Energy share for every three Williams shares; WPX Energy began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on January 3, 2012. Williams then became an infrastructure company, holding many of its pipeline assets through Williams Partners.⁠[11]

On June 13, 2013, a reboiler rupture caused an explosion and fire at the Williams olefins plant in Geismar, Louisiana, killing two employees and injuring 167 others. The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) final report in October 2016 traced the accident to process safety management deficiencies and “a poor process safety culture.”⁠[12]

In June 2014, Williams agreed to acquire all of Global Infrastructure Partners II’s interests in Access Midstream Partners and its general partner, giving it ownership and control of the general partner, and proposed a possible merger of Access Midstream with Williams Partners.⁠[13]

On September 28, 2015, Williams signed a merger agreement with Energy Transfer Equity. Because Latham & WatkinsLatham & WatkinsLatham & Watkins is an international law firm founded in Los Angeles in 1934 by Dana Latham and Paul R. Watkins. Starting from tax and labor law, it grew into a full-service firm covering M&A, capital markets, finance, litigation and regulatory work; by 2025 revenue it is the world’s second-highest-grossing law firm.Open the full entry could not deliver a required tax opinion, the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled on June 24, 2016, that Energy Transfer was entitled to terminate, and Energy Transfer then ended the deal; Williams appealed.⁠[14]

The deal had been valued at $33 billion. The Court of Chancery later found Energy Transfer to blame for walking away, awarded Williams $410 million in damages and $85 million in legal fees, and rejected Energy Transfer’s $1.48 billion breakup-fee claim. In October 2023, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld those rulings in full.⁠[15]

On August 10, 2018, Williams completed its merger with Williams Partners L.P., under which each eligible common unit was exchanged for 1.494 shares of Williams common stock.⁠[16]

After receiving Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval, Williams planned to place the Atlantic Sunrise project into full service on October 6, 2018. The project raised Transco’s design capacity by 1.7 Bcf per day to 15.8 Bcf per day and included 186 miles of greenfield pipe, connecting Marcellus supplies with markets as far south as Alabama.⁠[17]

In 2021, Williams completed its acquisition of Sequent Energy Management, L.P. and Sequent Energy Canada, Corp. from Southern CompanySouthern CompanyThe Southern Company is an Atlanta-based energy holding company whose subsidiaries, including Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Mississippi Power, Southern Company Gas, Southern Power and Southern Nuclear, provide electricity and natural gas; it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SO.Open the full entry Gas, a deal announced in May. Sequent focuses on asset management and wholesale marketing, trading, storage and transportation of natural gas, and the deal raised Williams’ gas pipeline marketing footprint to more than 8 Bcf per day.⁠[18]

In February 2023, Williams closed its acquisition of MountainWest Pipelines Holding Company from Southwest Gas Holdings for an enterprise value of $1.5 billion, including $0.43 billion of assumed debt. The business has about 2,000 miles of interstate gas pipeline and 56 Bcf of storage, mainly in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.⁠[19]

On May 5, 2025, Williams announced that Alan Armstrong, CEO since January 2011, would become executive chairman on July 1, 2025. Chad Zamarin, executive vice president of corporate strategic development, who joined Williams in 2017 from Cheniere Energy, succeeded him as president and CEO, and chairman Stephen Bergstrom became lead independent director.⁠[20]

In June 2025, the Ohio Power Siting Board approved the Socrates South project of Williams subsidiary Will-Power OH, a 200-megawatt natural gas-fired facility in New Albany that will supply an affiliate of Meta PlatformsMetaMeta (Meta Platforms, Inc.) is a publicly listed American technology company, renamed from Facebook in 2021, that operates social communication, digital advertising, virtual reality, smart glasses and artificial intelligence businesses.Open the full entry and is “behind-the-meter,” not physically connected to the electric grid.⁠[21]

On November 7, 2025, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a Clean Water Act Section 401 water quality certification for the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, subject to on-site independent third-party monitors and mitigation estimated at about $23.5 million. The review drew more than 17,000 new public comments.⁠[22]

NESE, which spans New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, had previously been rejected by New York environmental regulators and canceled by Williams in past years.⁠[23]

Williams operates more than 32,000 miles of pipelines in 24 states and the Gulf of America, including the roughly 9,600-mile Transco system from Texas to the New York City area. It had 5,987 full-time employees as of February 1, 2026.⁠[24]

Williams’ total revenues were $11.95 billion in 2025, compared with $10.503 billion in 2024. GAAP net income available to common stockholders was $2.615 billion ($2.14 per diluted share), up 18 percent, and Adjusted EBITDA was $7.75 billion, up 9 percent. The company raised its annualized dividend for 2026 by 5 percent to $2.10 per share.⁠[25]

Williams’ second-quarter 2026 total revenues were $3.053 billion, with GAAP net income of $827 million ($0.68 per diluted share), up 51 percent, and Adjusted EBITDA of $1.921 billion. The same day it agreed to acquire Momentum Midstream in a deal valued at up to $5.5 billion and finalized a Power Innovation joint venture with BlackstoneBlackstoneBlackstone is an alternative asset manager serving institutional and individual investors. Its official website states that its assets under management exceeded $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2026.Open the full entry providing $5.34 billion of capital; phase one of its Socrates project was complete.⁠[26]