Dykstra: Halliburton Strikes Oil

College basketball is moving toward completion of the regular season, with teams jockeying for seeds in the conference tournaments.

Florida was toppled from its No. 1 perch after this weekend's loss to Vanderbilt, and Ohio State, led by the man-child Greg Oden, has assumed the top spot, with Big Ten Conference rival Wisconsin occupying second. In a phenomenal stroke of scheduling genius, or luck, Ohio State and Wisconsin will meet this Saturday in a battle for No. 1. All this is merely a prelude to March Madness.

While we wait for that, let's keep our heads in the money game.

Today's topic is Halliburton(HAL Quote), which provides a variety of services, products, maintenance, engineering and construction to energy, industrial and governmental customers. Its six business segments include production optimization, fluid systems, drilling and formation evaluation, digital and consulting solutions, government and infrastructure, and energy and chemicals.

The government and infrastructure and energy and chemicals segments are part of KBR(KBR Quote), which Halliburton spun off in November. (Wall Street is still watching to see what Halliburton will do with the stake in KBR it still owns.)

I consider Halliburton to be the premier energy company in the world. It owns a large number of patents and has pending a number of patent applications that cover various products and processes. The company is also licensed to utilize patents owned by others. Halliburton, which employs more than 100,000 people worldwide, had a record year in 2006, with revenue topping $22.50 billion, and a return on equity that came in at 33.05%. They are swimming in that good old Texas tea!