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| Traded as | NYSE: NTG |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired by Cameron International |
| Predecessor | National Tank Company |
| Founded | 1988 |
| Defunct | 2009 |
| Headquarters | , United States |
NATCO Group was a medium-sized company based in Houston, Texas, officially founded in 1988 but essentially the successor of the National Tank Company which was founded in 1926; it manufactured equipment for separating oil, natural gas and water from one another, which is used in most oil-producing regions of the world. Its turnover in 2008 was $650 million and it had 2400 employees.
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is a viscous liquid at ambient temperatures and is both hydrophobic and lipophilic. Oils have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are usually flammable and surface active.
Natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly including varying amounts of other higher alkanes, and sometimes a small percentage of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium. It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of chemical bonds in the gas.
Water is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's streams, lakes, and oceans, and the fluids of most living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life, even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. Its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds. Water is the name of the liquid state of H2O at standard ambient temperature and pressure. It forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds are formed from suspended droplets of water and ice, its solid state. When finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is steam or water vapor. Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea.
In November 2009 it was acquired by Cameron International [1] in a $780 million all-stock transaction, the intent being to insource processing and separation products for Cameron.
Cameron International Corporation is a Schlumberger company and a global provider of pressure control, processing, flow control and compression systems as well as project management and aftermarket services for the oil and gas and process industries. It employs approximately 23,000 people and is headquartered in Park Towers South, Houston, Texas. In 2006 Cooper Cameron was officially renamed "Cameron."
In January 2010 NATCO settled an FCPA case, admitting that it had paid bribes to Kazakhstan officials who would otherwise have questioned the immigration status of its workers there [2] and invoiced for them as miscellaneous expenses.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) is a United States federal law known primarily for two of its main provisions: one that addresses accounting transparency requirements under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and another concerning bribery of foreign officials. The Act was amended in 1988 and in 1998, and has been subject to continued congressional concerns, namely whether its enforcement discourages U.S. companies from investing abroad.
Whilst most of its revenue came from the US, it had projects in Kazakhstan, south-east Asia and the Canadian oil sands [3]
