Houma Fabricators News

The State of North Carolina has the nation's second largest ferry system. Only the State of Washington's system is larger. Its 23 vessels annually carry 2.5 million passengers and one million vehicles. The ferry system is operated by the Ferry Division of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, which employs approximately 380 permanent employees. This number increase to approximately 450 during the summer season. There are four ferry routes on three bodies of water connecting the mainland with the offshore islands of Ocracoke, Hatteras and Notts Islands. Three routes cross the Cape Fear, Neuse and Pamlico Rivers. The Ferry Division also has a dredge, tugs, fuel barge and its own shipyard located in Manns Harbor.

The one constant about the management of offshore vessel operating companies is the domination of family members of the founder. Except for the largest of these companies, Tidewater, Inc., that is a public NYSE-listed firm, most of the companies in this category, large and small, are run by the descendents of the founder. Many of these companies still bear the founder's name and most of the vessels are named after family members. In 1948, Abdon Callais converted a shrimp trawler into an offshore service vessel and that began a company that is in its third generation of providing transportation of fluids and cargo to offshore oil and gas rigs. Abdon's sons Harold and Ronald became involved with offshore oil buisness.

For many years Houma Fabricators, Houma, La. built passenger boats, offshore boats and other steel hulled vessels much like a dozen other shipyards in the Gulf south. In the mid-90's they built several large gaming boats for Iowa entrepreneur Bob Kehl. If you hadn't stopped by Houma Fabricators for the past two years, today you would not recognize the place. Purchased by Shipyard De Hoop of the Netherlands in 2001, the shipyard has undergone an amazing transformation with an $8.6 million expansion. The Dutch shipyard is turning the 42-acre Houma site into a shipyard to resemble the company's main facility in Lobith, Netherlands. " So far we have added three steel preparation halls, four subassembly halls, new slipways with bulkheads and a permanent launching system," said O.M.

One of the first companies to offer offshore supply services in the Gulf of Mexico was Otto Candies. His vision has endured and today the company is expanding its fleet rapidly through a second and a third generation of Candies executives. In the new millennium, Otto Candies LLC, Des Allemands, La., has embarked on a very aggressive new building program that has seen the delivery of three 150-ft. by 50-ft. anchor handling tugs, three state of the art 240-ft. diesel/electric supply boats and now a series of six 185-ft. by 42-ft. supply boats also with diesel electric propulsion and dynamic positioning capabilities. The three 150-ft. tugs and the three supply boats were built by Bender Shipbuilding and Repair, Mobile, Ala. For five of the six 185-ft.

Although this has been considered an off year in the Gulf of Mexico from rig count and fleet utilization standpoints, it is another record year for major offshore operators expanding their fleets and the shipyards that are building these vessels. Last year, over 50 supply boats were delivered and about an equal number of crew/supply vessels made their way into the fleets of operators. This year looks equally robust as vessels are being ordered in quantities of four, six and even 10. This begs the question as to why offshore vessel operators are order record number of vessels if the business is sluggish? The answer is two fold: Deep water and deep gas. Drilling activity is bound to increase based on these two factors industry leaders believe.

Alstom won contract to supply electrical systems for a vessel being built for Otto Candies by the de Hoop shipyard in the Netherlands. The order includes a simplex dynamic positioning (DP) system from Altsom's 'A' series, plus manual thrusters controls and an independent joystick, for the NB400 offshore support vessel for Otto Candies, which is to be built at the Dutch shipyard. This DP order comes on the back of an earlier contract for the same vessel, to supply variable speed drives from Alstom's MV3000 liquid cooled range, plus transformers and motors for the two main 900kW azimuth thrusters. Two of Otto Candies' diving support vessels built by de Hoop - Caballo de Mar and Caballo de Trabajo - are now in service…