Page 34: of Marine News Magazine (April 2012)

That said, Bollinger cautioned, demand for vessels should continue to increase but could be offset by U.S. flag vessels that were deployed overseas in the last two years returning to the Gulf.? Bollinger Shipyards builds OSVs, tug boats, ocean barges, rigs, liftboats, patrol boats and inland push boats and barges.Elsewhere, in a $720 million program announced in November, Hornbeck Offshore Services in Covington, La., plans to build sixteen, 300-class offshore supply ves- sels, and has contracted eight of them to VT Halter Marine in Pascagoula, Miss. and eight to Eastern Shipbuilding Group in Panama City, Fla., with options to build more. Robert Socha, executive vice president for sales and marketing at Bollinger, said demand for deep- water support vessels in the 4,500 to 6,000 DWT range has increased in the Gulf over the past year with announcements of future, deepwater oil and gas explo- ration. Several announcements have been made for new- build programs at various shipyards, filling Gulf Coast shipyard capacity. The demand for OSVs is targeted towards larger capacity vessels with DP 2.? Socha added our repair groups continue to see demand for our larger dry-docks that are capable of serv- icing larger support vessels.? Bollinger, the top volume vessel-repair company in the GOM, has twelve shipyards and 31 dry docks in Louisiana and Texas. GULFINVESTMENTCLIMATE IMPROVES VERSUSTWOYEARSAGODon Briggs told MarineNews in March, After the Photo courtesy Harvey Gulf We've slowly, surely gotten back to work in the Gulf. We are not at pre-Macondo levels yet, but we're coming back. Today's count in the GOM is 43 rigs and that's up from 25 a year ago. Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association34MNApril 2012Photo courtesy Greater Lafourche Port Commission