Houston earns No. 3 spot among cities with most Fortune 500 headquarters

biggest companies

Twenty-six Houston-area companies landed on the latest Fortune 500 list. Photo via Getty Images

Houston maintained its No. 3 status this year among U.S. metro areas with the most Fortune 500 headquarters. Fortune magazine tallied 26 Fortune 500 headquarters in the Houston area, behind only the New York City area (62) and the Chicago area (30).

Last year, 23 Houston-area companies landed on the Fortune 500 list. Fortune bases the list on revenue that a public or private company earns during its 2024 budget year.

On the Fortune 500 list for 2025, Spring-based ExxonMobil remained the highest-ranked company based in the Houston area as well as in Texas, sitting at No. 8 nationally. That’s down one spot from its No. 7 perch on the 2024 list. During its 2024 budget year, ExxonMobil reported revenue of $349.6 billion, up from $344.6 billion the previous year.

Here are the rankings and 2024 revenue for the 25 other Houston-area companies that made this year’s Fortune 500:

No. 16 Chevron, $202.8 billion
No. 28 Phillips 66, $145.5 billion
No. 56 Sysco, $78.8 billion
No. 75 Conoco Phillips, $56.9 million
No. 78 Enterprise Products Partners, $56.2 billion
No. 92 Plains GP Holdings, $50 billion
No. 143 Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, $30.1 billion
No. 153 NRG Energy, $28.1 billion
No. 155 Baker Hughes, $27.8 billion
No. 159 Occidental Petroleum, $26.9 billion
No. 183 EOG Resources, $23.7 billion
No. 184 Quanta Services, $23.7 billion
No. 194 Halliburton, $23 billion
No. 197 Waste Management, $22.1 billion
No. 214 Group 1 Automotive, $19.9 billion
No. 224 Corebridge Financial, $18.8 billion
No. 256 Targa Resources, $16.4 billion
No. 275 Cheniere Energy, $15.7 billion
No. 289 Kinder Morgan, $15.1 billion
No. 345 Westlake Corp., $12.1 billion
No. 422 APA, $9.7 billion
No. 443 NOV, $8.9 billion
No. 450 CenterPoint Energy, $8.6 billion
No. 474 Par Pacific Holdings, $8 billion
No. 480 KBR Inc., $7.7 billion

Nationally, the top five Fortune 500 companies are:

Walmart
Amazon
UnitedHealth Group
Apple
CVS Health

“The Fortune 500 is a literal roadmap to the rise and fall of markets, a reliable playbook of the world's most important regions, services, and products, and an indispensable roster of those companies' dynamic leaders,” Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, CEO of Fortune Media, said in a news release.

Among the states, Texas ranks second for the number of Fortune 500 headquarters (54), preceded by California (58) and followed by New York (53).

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Envana Software Solutions' tech allows an oil and gas company to see a full inventory of greenhouse gases. Photo via Getty Images

Houston joint venture secures $5.2M for AI-powered methane tracking tech

fresh funds

Houston-based Envana Software Solutions has received more than $5.2 million in federal and non-federal funding to support the development of technology for the oil and gas sector to monitor and reduce methane emissions.

Thanks to the work backed by the new funding, Envana says its suite of emissions management software will become the industry's first technology to allow an oil and gas company to obtain a full inventory of greenhouse gases.

The funding comes from a more than $4.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and more than $1 million in non-federal funding.

“Methane is many times more potent than carbon dioxide and is responsible for approximately one-third of the warming from greenhouse gases occurring today,” Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary at DOE, said in 2024.

With the funding, Envana will expand artificial intelligence (AI) and physics-based models to help detect and track methane emissions at oil and gas facilities.

“We’re excited to strengthen our position as a leader in emissions and carbon management by integrating critical scientific and operational capabilities. These advancements will empower operators to achieve their methane mitigation targets, fulfill their sustainability objectives, and uphold their ESG commitments with greater efficiency and impact,” says Nagaraj Srinivasan, co-lead director of Envana.

In conjunction with this newly funded project, Envana will team up with universities and industry associations in Texas to:

Advance work on the mitigation of methane emissions
Set up internship programs
Boost workforce development
Promote environmental causes

Envana, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup, provides emissions management technology to forecast, track, measure and report industrial data for greenhouse gas emissions.

Founded in 2023, Envana is a joint venture between Houston-based Halliburton, a provider of products and services for the energy industry, and New York City-based Siguler Guff, a private equity firm. Siguler Gulf maintains an office in Houston.

“Envana provides breakthrough SaaS emissions management solutions and is the latest example of how innovation adds to sustainability in the oil and gas industry,” Rami Yassine, a senior vice president at Halliburton, said when the joint venture was announced.

Halliburton Labs has named its latest cohort. Photo courtesy of Halliburton

Halliburton names 5 clean energy startups to latest incubator cohort

clean team

Halliburton Labs has named five companies to its latest cohort, including one from Texas.

All of the companies are working to help accelerate the future of the energy industry in different ways. The incubator aims to advance the companies’ commercialization with support from Halliburton's network, facilities and financing opportunities.

The five new members include:

360 Energy, an Austin-based in-field computing company with technology that is able to capture flared or stranded gas and monetize it through modular data centers
Cella, a New York-based mineral storage company that provides end-to-end services, from resource assessment to proprietary injection technology, and monitoring techniques to provide geologic carbon storage solutions
Espiku, an engineering services company based in Bend, Oregon, that finds solutions that advance water and minerals recovery from brines and industrial-produced water streams
Mitico, based in Los Angeles, that offers technology services to capture carbon dioxide by using its patent-pending granulated metal carbonate sorption technology (GMC) that captures more than 95% of the CO2 emitted from post-combustion point sources
NuCube, a Pasadena, California-based company with a nuclear fission reactor under development

“We welcome these innovative energy startups,” Dale Winger, managing director of Halliburton Labs, said in a news release. “We are eager to help these participant companies use their time and capital efficiently to progress new solutions that meet industry requirements for cost, reliability, and sustainability.”

Halliburton Labs also announced that it will host the Finalists Pitch Day on March 26, 2025, in Denver for energy and decarbonization industry innovators, startups and investors ahead of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Industry Growth Forum. The pitch event will precede registration and the opening reception of the NREL forum. Find more information here.

Adena Power, an Ohio-based clean energy startup, was the latest to join Halliburton Labs prior to the new cohort. The company used three patented materials to produce a sodium-based battery that delivers clean, safe and long-lasting energy storage.

The incubator also named San Francisco-based venture capital investor Pulakesh Mukherjee, partner at Imperative Ventures, which specializes in hard tech decarbonization startups, to its advisory board last spring.

Read more about the incubator's 2023 cohort here.

Adena Power uses three patented materials to produce a sodium-based battery that delivers clean, safe, long-lasting energy storage. Photo via adenapower.com

Sodium-based battery startup joins Halliburton Labs

new cohort co.

An Ohio-based clean energy startup has joined Houston-based Halliburton Labs, an incubator for early-stage energy tech companies.

Adena Power uses three patented materials to produce a sodium-based battery that delivers clean, safe, long-lasting energy storage. The startup is trying to capitalize on the 100 terawatt-hour potential for energy storage in the U.S. grid.

“With Halliburton Labs’ support and operational expertise, Adena Power looks to accelerate scaling and take advantage of the high-growth market opportunity,” Nathan Cooley, co-founder and CEO of Adena Power, says in a news release.

Adena, founded in 2022, supplies energy storage batteries for the commercial, industrial, and utility sectors. The startup has collected funding from four investors, according to PitchBook: OhioXcelerate, Third Derivative, BRITE Energy Innovators, and For ClimateTech.

Adena’s addition to Halliburton Labs comes during a momentous year for the company. For example:

Adena won the People’s Choice Award at the National Renewable Energy Labs Industry Growth Forum.
Adena earned the MAKE IT (Manufacture of Advanced Key Energy Infrastructure Technologies) Prize from the U.S. Department of Energy.

“Our team is ready to collaborate with Adena to help them accelerate their growth to meet the demand for behind-the-meter storage solutions,” says Dale Winger, managing director of Halliburton Labs.

Halliburton Labs is a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton, a provider of products and services for the energy industry. The incubator will have pitches at the inaugural Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week next month.

According to Halliburton, the pump will offer an “efficient, safe, and agile solution that streamlines geothermal operations and enhances overall performance.” Photo via halliburton.com

Halliburton introduces new pump technology designed for geothermal

fresh tech

Houston-based Halliburton has introduced a new technology that is designed specifically for geothermal energy applications.

The Summit ESP GeoESP is an advanced submersible borehole and surface pump technology GeoESP lifting pumps, which address challenges related to the transport of fluids to the surface through electric submersible pumps (ESP).

According to a news release from Halliburton, the pump will offer an “efficient, safe, and agile solution that streamlines geothermal operations and enhances overall performance.”

The inlet design minimizes power consumption, protects the pump against solids, and tackles scale formation. GeoESP lifting pumps can withstand extreme conditions with the ability to operate at temperatures up to 220°C (428°F) and can resist scale, corrosion, and abrasion.

GeoESP lifting pumps also use standard pump dimensions customized to suit various geothermal well conditions. With that, Halliburton will also offer a digital approach to geothermal well management with the Intelevat data science-driven platform to empower operators with real-time diagnostics and visualizations of “smart” field data. Halliburton states the system will improve well operations, increase production, extend system run life,reduce energy consumption, and minimize shutdowns.

“With increased global focus on low carbon energy sources, we are using our many decades of geothermal production expertise to help our customers maximize safety and improve efficiency,” Vice President of Artificial Lift Greg Schneider says in the release. “GeoESP lifting pumps build upon our current system to minimize power usage and help push the boundaries of what is possible with more complex well designs.”

Recently, more Houston-based companies have invested in geothermal technologies. GA Drilling and ZeroGeo Energy, a Swiss company specializing in renewable energy, announced a 12-megawatt Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Power Plant (Project THERMO), which is the first of several geothermal power and geothermal energy storage projects in Europe.

Additionally, Fervo Energy is exploring the potential for a geothermal energy system at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada. Sage Geosystems is working on an exploratory geothermal project for the Army’s Fort Bliss post in Texas. The Bliss project is the third U.S. Department of Defense geothermal initiative in the Lone Star State.

The Department of Energy announced two major initiatives that will reach the Gulf of Texas and Louisiana in U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm's address at CERAWeek by S&P Global in March. The Department of Energy’s latest Pathways to Commercial Liftoff report are initiatives established to provide investors with information of how specific energy technologies commercialize and what challenges they each have to overcome as they scale.

"Geothermal has such enormous potential,” she previously said during her address at CERAWEEK. “If we can capture the 'heat beneath our feet,' it can be the clean, reliable, base-load scalable power for everybody from industries to households."

Halliburton and ConocoPhillips were named to the 2023 Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. Photo via halliburton.com

2 Houston energy companies secure Dow Jones sustainability rating

seeing green

Halliburton and ConocoPhillips were named to the 2023 Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, which assesses the “sustainability performance of companies transparency process” based on an annual S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment.

The CSA evaluates companies’ sustainability practices, and covers over 10,000 companies globally. The CSA has focused on financially material and industry-specific sustainability criteria since 1999.

The methodology of the annual CSA is updated to reflect the objectives to ensure that the CSA captures and delivers high-quality, material sustainability data, and increases efficiency and ease for participating companies. Over 13,000 companies get invited to participate in the CSA, but just 3,500 of the largest companies globally are eligible for inclusion.

In 2023, the DJSI saw a strong response from companies that disclosed their sustainability performance to capital markets through the CSA process.

For Halliburton, 2023 marks the third consecutive year that the company has been named to the prestigious list. Halliburton and ConocoPhillips are the only Houston companies that made the 2023 list.

“At Halliburton, we are constantly developing new and better ways to meet the growing global energy demand while advancing a more sustainable energy future,” Summer Condarco, senior vice president of Service Quality, Continuous Improvement, and Chief HSE Officer, says in a news release. “We are honored to be recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for our commitment to sustainability leadership.”

See the full list of companies here.

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Reliant partners to expand Texas virtual power plant and home battery use

energy incentives

Houston’s Reliant and San Francisco tech company GoodLeap are teaming up to bolster residential battery participation and accelerate the growth of NRG’s virtual power plant (VPP) network in Texas.

Through the new partnership, eligible Reliant customers can either lease a battery or enter into a power purchase agreement with GoodLeap through its GoodGrid program, which incentivises users by offering monthly performance-based rewards for contributing stored power to the grid. Through the Reliant GoodLeap VPP Battery Program, customers will start earning $40 per month in rewards from GoodLeap.

“These incentives highlight our commitment to making homeowner battery adoption more accessible, effectively offsetting the cost of the battery and making the upgrade a no-cost addition to their homes,” Dan Lotano, COO at GoodLeap, said in a news release.“We’re proud to work with NRG to unlock the next frontier in distributed energy in Texas. This marks an important step in GoodLeap reaching our nationwide goal of 1.5 GW of managed distributed energy over the next five years.”

Other features of the program include power outage plans, with battery reserves set aside for outage events. The plan also intelligently manages the battery without homeowner interaction.

The partnership comes as Reliant’s parent company, NRG, continues to scale its VPP program. Last year, NRG partnered with California-based Renew Home to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 in an effort to help households manage and lower their energy costs.

“We started building our VPP with smart thermostats across Texas, and now this partnership with GoodLeap brings home battery storage into our platform,” Mark Parsons, senior vice president and head of Texas energy at NRG, said in a the release. “Each time we add new devices, we’re enabling Texans to unlock new value from their homes, earn rewards and help build a more resilient grid for everyone. This is about giving customers the opportunity to actively participate in the energy transition and receive tangible benefits for themselves and their communities.

How Corrolytics is tackling industrial corrosion and cutting emissions

now streaming

Corrosion is not something most people think about, but for Houston's industrial backbone pipelines, refineries, chemical plants, and water infrastructure, it is a silent and costly threat. Replacing damaged steel and overusing chemicals adds hundreds of millions of tons of carbon emissions every year. Despite the scale of the problem, corrosion detection has barely changed in decades.

In a recent episode of the Energy Tech Startups Podcast, Anwar Sadek, founder and CEO of Corrolytics, explained why the traditional approach is not working and how his team is delivering real-time visibility into one of the most overlooked challenges in the energy transition.

From Lab Insight to Industrial Breakthrough

Anwar began as a researcher studying how metals degrade and how microbes accelerate corrosion. He quickly noticed a major gap. Companies could detect the presence of microorganisms, but they could not tell whether those microbes were actually causing corrosion or how quickly the damage was happening. Most tests required shipping samples to a lab and waiting months for results, long after conditions inside the asset had changed.

That gap inspired Corrolytics' breakthrough. The company developed a portable, real-time electrochemical test that measures microbial corrosion activity directly from fluid samples. No invasive probes. No complex lab work. Just the immediate data operators can act on.

“It is like switching from film to digital photography,” Anwar says. “What used to take months now takes a couple of hours.”

Why Corrosion Matters in Houston's Energy Transition

Houston's energy transition is a blend of innovation and practicality. While the world builds new low-carbon systems, the region still depends on existing industrial infrastructure. Keeping those assets safe, efficient, and emission-conscious is essential.

This is where Corrolytics fits in. Every leak prevented, every pipeline protected, and every unnecessary gallon of biocide avoided reduces emissions and improves operational safety. The company is already seeing interest across oil and gas, petrochemicals, water and wastewater treatment, HVAC, industrial cooling, and biofuels. If fluids move through metal, microbial corrosion can occur, and Corrolytics can detect it.

Because microbes evolve quickly, slow testing methods simply cannot keep up. “By the time a company gets lab results, the environment has changed completely,” Anwar explains. “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.”

A Scientist Steps Into the CEO Role

Anwar did not plan to become a CEO. But through the National Science Foundation's ICorps program, he interviewed more than 300 industry stakeholders. Over 95 percent cited microbial corrosion as a major issue with no effective tool to address it. That validation pushed him to transform his research into a product.

Since then, Corrolytics has moved from prototype to real-world pilots in Brazil and Houston, with early partners already using the technology and some preparing to invest. Along the way, Anwar learned to lead teams, speak the language of industry, and guide the company through challenges. “When things go wrong, and they do, it is the CEO's job to steady the team,” he says.

Why Houston

Relocating to Houston accelerated everything. Customers, partners, advisors, and manufacturing talent are all here. For industrial and energy tech startups, Houston offers an ecosystem built for scale.

What's Next

Corrolytics is preparing for broader pilots, commercial partnerships, and team growth as it continues its fundraising efforts. For anyone focused on asset integrity, emissions reduction, or industrial innovation, this is a company to watch.

Listen to the full conversation with Anwar Sadek on the Energy Tech Startups Podcast to learn more:

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Energy Tech Startups Podcast is hosted by Jason Ethier and Nada Ahmed. It delves into Houston's pivotal role in the energy transition, spotlighting entrepreneurs and industry leaders shaping a low-carbon future.

Investors close partial acquisition of Phillips 66 subsidiary with growing EV network

M&A activity

Energy Equation Partners, a London-based investment firm focused on clean energy companies, and New York-based Stonepeak have completed the acquisition of a 65 percent interest in JET Tankstellen Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Houston oil and gas giant Phillips 66.

JET is one of the largest and most popular fuel retailers in Germany and Austria with a rapidly growing EV charging network, according to a news release. It also operates approximately 970 service stations, convenience stores and car washes.

“We are delighted to complete this acquisition and to partner with Stonepeak and Phillips 66 to take JET to the next level,” Javed Ahmed, managing partner of Energy Equation Partners, said in a news release. “This investment reflects EEP’s commitment to investing in established players in the energy sector who have the potential to make a meaningful impact on the energy transition, and we are excited to work alongside the entire JET team, including its dedicated service station operators, to realize this vision.”

The deal values JET at approximately $2.8 billion. Phillips 66 will retain a 35 percent non-operated interest in JET and received about $1.6 billion in pre-tax proceeds.

“Under Phillips 66’s ownership, JET has grown into one of the largest fuel retailers in Germany and Austria," Anthony Borreca, senior managing director and co-head of energy at Stonepeak, added in a news release. "We are excited to join forces with them, as well as Javed and the EEP team, who have long-standing experience investing in and operating retail fuel distribution and logistics globally, to support the next phase of JET’s growth.”

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