Weekly News Summary For March 10-16, 2008:
TEPPCO Partners LP, Houston, Texas, last week announced its second major inland marine acquisition this year. In February, the firm purchased the assets of Cenac Towing Inc. and Cenac Offshore LLC of Houma, La., for approximately $500 million. On March 3, TEPPCO revealed it had acquired the assets of Horizon Maritime LLC of Houston for about $87 million.
The Horizon deal was finalized February 29, just four weeks after the February 1 closing of the Cenac transaction.
Horizon’s seven push boats and 17 tank barges will be operated by Cenac under a services agreement. Included in the transaction are two additional boats currently under construction that are scheduled for delivery this year.
With the completion of the two transactions, TEPPCO’s marine transportation business is now comprised of 51 push boats, including the two scheduled for delivery in 2008, and 106 barges. This places TEPPCO among the 10 largest inland marine transportation companies for petroleum products based on the number of barges. TEPPCO’s barge fleet is also one of the newest in the industry, with an average age of approximately 12 years. Of the 106 barges, 96 are double-hulled….
The Red River remained at or above flood stage from July through September, but coordinated efforts by the Corps of Engineers, releasing water from 14 flood-prevention reservoirs, allowed navigation to continue on the waterway.
In addition, no dredging was required to maintain the nine-foot channel, delegates at the Red River Valley Association (RRVA) 83rd Annual Conference were told last week in Shreveport, La.
Brig. Gen. Kendall K. Cox opened the conference with a discussion of Corps activities worldwide, including the war on terrorism.
Ron Bell of the Corps’ Southwestern District and Robert Simrall of the Vicksburg District said coordinated releases by four Corps districts were designed to provide the least amount of impact on navigation. As the river fell, the releases from the reservoirs were made to allow the dikes to work in the most efficient manner, moving the silt through the system, maintaining a minimum nine-foot draft without dredging.
Richard Brontoli, executive director of the Red River Valley Association, said the water flow reached 100,000 cubic feet per second. Even though the waterway never came close to overflowing its banks, it required larger towboats—or smaller tows—than those that normally transverse the waterway in northwest Louisiana….
What would happen if you removed all of the cargo from the nation’s waterways and instead hauled it by truck or rail? A major new study, released last week by the Center for Ports and Waterways of the Texas Transportation Institute, attempts to answer that question, and the results aren’t pretty.
Entitled “A Modal Comparison of Freight Transportation Effects on the General Public,” the study was conducted over more than one year, and reports on the environmental, societal and safety impacts of barge transportation and compares those impacts to highway and rail transportation.
The study was paid for by the National Waterways Foundation and the U.S. Maritime Administration. It covers some of the same ground as a 1994 MarAd report, “Environmental Advantages of Inland Barge Transportation,” but uses new data sources and more current data.
The study looks at the tonnage and ton-mile data for 2005 (the most recent available) for the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland and Columbia rivers and Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. It found that the amount of cargo currently transported on those waterways is the equivalent of 58 million truck trips on the nation’s highways, or an increase of nearly 25 percent more tonnage on the railroad system….
No one was more surprised than Pat Studdert when Cardinal DiNardo accepted his invitation to bless Buffalo Marine Service’s new towboat February 1. When the phone rang only a few days after the invitation had been extended and someone announced the cardinal was on the line, Studdert could do little more than utter incredulously “What? What?”
He would have been very pleased to hear from an official of lesser stature. His Eminence Daniel N. Cardinal DiNardo, elevated to the post last November, is one of only about 200 in the world, one of only 17 in the United States, and the first one from Texas.
It is from his ranks that the pope is chosen.
Perhaps the two-page letter that Studdert wrote did the trick. In it, the president of Buffalo Marine Service eloquently explained how his father had named his first boat after Saint Bernard in 1946. He described the important role that his father’s faith played in the success of the company and the company’s tradition of naming the vessels after saints.
“Father Rivers Patout of St. Alphonsus’ Parish of Galveston-Houston, blessed nearly every newly constructed “saint” in the Buffalo Fleet. We are certain this has protected our crews from the hazards of maritime commerce,” he wrote.
Buffalo Marine’s fleet of “saints” interfaces with foreign crews from scores of nations, and the company is an avid supporter of Houston’s Seafarer Center and all faith-based initiatives that support mariners from around the globe. Immediately after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, Buffalo Marine distributed more than 2,400 “Peace Plaques” to all foreign vessels that came into contact with Buffalo crews, he told the cardinal….
Orion Marine Group Inc., Houston, Texas, has acquired substantially all of the assets and business of Subaqueous Service Inc. (SSI), Orlando, Fla. Orion announced the acquisition February 29. The $35 million cost of the deal is funded using a portion of Orion’s term loan bank facility. Orion will operate the acquired assets under the name Subaqueous Services LLC, based in Jacksonville, Fla.
SSI is a specialty dredging services provider that focuses on shallow-water dredging projects in Florida and along the Atlantic seaboard utilizing both mechanical and hydraulic cutter suction pipeline dredging. Over its 25-year history, SSI has provided services on projects such as the dredging of ports, inlets, and Florida’s intracoastal waterways as well as wetland creation, shoreline stabilization, beach nourishment, lake restoration, and port expansion to a variety of private and public customers. SSI estimates its 2008 revenues will be between $40 and $45 million.
“This acquisition adds hydraulic cutter suction dredging capabilities to our East Coast operations and allows the company to further expand its footprint for turnkey marine construction capabilities in the Florida and Atlantic seaboard markets,” said Mike Pearson, Orion president and chief executive officer. “By having these types of dredging services available in Florida, we will have the opportunity to attract new projects with enhanced capabilities to meet our customer’s complete marine contracting needs.”…
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