Growing Dredging Fleet Is Focus Of Inland Marine Expo Panel Discussion
It’s a good time to be in the dredging business. A flood of infrastructure spending from several recently passed bills including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal) has made dredging companies busier—and more important—than ever.
Stanley Ekren, vice president and rivers and lakes manager at Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company (GLDD), gave a presentation at the recent Inland Marine Expo in Nashville, Tenn. Ekren explained the differences between the different types of dredges in GLDD’s fleet, and where and under what conditions they operate. The company owns and operates the largest and most diverse fleet of dredging vessels and supporting vessels in the United States. Its equipment fleet of 14 Jones Act dredges includes cutter suction, trailing suction hopper and mechanical dredges, material transport barges, a drillboat, barge unloader, booster stations, hydrographic survey vessels and other specialized support vessels and land equipment.
The fleet is growing, said Ekren, with total capacity expected to grow by 25 percent by the year 2025. “The market is replenishing itself,” he said. “New equipment is coming online all the time.”
Ekren mentioned new entrants to the dredging market like Muddy Water Dredging, which was recently formed and ordered a new 24-inch cutter suction dredge. That dredge is now expected to be ready by January 2024, according to Matt Devall, co-owner and director of Muddy Water. Devall said he is deciding whether the christening will take place in New Orleans, where it is being built at DSC Dredge LLC, or in Texas, where Muddy Water is headquartered.
Ekren noted that GLDD had three dredges available for emergency service during last year’s low-water crisis. “The dredging is the easy part,” he said. “It’s the mobilization that takes the most time.”
Older firms like Marinex and Cottell Contracting Company are also getting important contracts. Cottrell recently won a $30 million fixed-price contract from the Norfolk Engineer District for maintenance dredging of the James River in Virginia.
Fleet Management
In the same panel with Ekren, Mark Lawrence, owner of Current Data LLC, demonstrated Current Data’s fleet data management tool, launched in 2020. Its four separate databases cover inland tank barges, inland towboats, coastal/harbor tank barges and coastal tugboats (currently in development).
Users can filter out the coasts and focus on certain regions, such as the Gulf Coast or Intracoastal Waterway. They can also filter results by product category and capacity class. Lawrence showed, for example, that coastal/harbor tank barges in the system, which operate mostly on the East Coast, number 284 and are 16 years old on average. These figures are useful for calculating return-to-service dates.
Lawrence suggested that recent build activity might not keep up with the aging of the inland barge fleet. There was a “bubble” period between 2012 and 2015—when more barges were built as a result of Subchapter M—that is “moving through the system.” Lawrence said 23 tank barges were built last year—well below recent averages. In the past 20 years, about 12,500 deck barges have been built, out of a total barge fleet of 18,500. About 1,100 barges were due to renew their certificates of inspection this year, with another 2,000 facing expiration of their COIs soon.
Joe Kelly, vice president of maritime solutions at ABS Wavesight, also gave an insightful presentation. ABS Wavesight is the software and performance analytics division of ABS, one of the world’s most respected maritime class societies, with offices all over the world.
Its suite of software tools is one of the most comprehensive in the marine space. The software enables vessel owners to manage every phase of operations, including asset tracking, maintenance schedules, procurement, bidding for materials, employee training and drydock scheduling. One of its modules handles Subchapter M compliance, with electronic logbooks awaiting Coast Guard approval.
“Our vision is to create a more efficient and sustainable maritime,” Kelly told the IMX audience. About 5,000 vessels are using the software, he said, out of a total ABS-certified fleet of 12,000 vessels. The ABS website offers ongoing webinars to help customers make the best use of the software.
