Page 36: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Q3 2013)

OFFSHORE SUPPORT ing a lot of used ?cars,? too. Dolphin Towing, BeeMar and Gulf Offshore Logistics vessels now  y the Harvey Gulf  ag and Guidry is acutely aware that what might have been good enough for others won?t cut it when it comes to putting out to sea for Harvey Gulf. He also puts his money where his mouth is. ?We?re spending millions of dollars to bring up to Harvey Gulf standards the quality of the interiors on the boats that we?ve acquired.? The improvements extend beyond interior accommodations and creature comforts. The plans to stretch  ve of its recently acquired OSV?s, increasing their deck space to 10,000 square feet and cargo capacities to 10,000 Barrels of Liquid Mud plus 10,000 cubic feet of Dry Bulk is already underway. And, he adds, ?For example, some of the boats have just two genera- tors ? they conform to the rules but we don?t like it. So, we?re adding a third. It?s about providing the best possible service. We?re going to change out the  ooring in all of these vessels. The crew boats will be upgraded to more comfortable living quarters. First quality mattresses ? everything. I appreciate the hard work and the safe job that they do, so you just can?t ex- pect keep it that way with a couple of pay raises. You also have to make people want to come to work.? At Harvey Gulf, they do want to come to work and Guidry is intent on ensuring that they go home in the same condition that they arrived on board. Since 2008, the  rm has had one re- cordable incident. Guidry says, ?I?m not sure if anyone else can say that. And knock on wood, in 58 years of being in business; we?ve never had a fatality. At our company, there is no budget in our safety department ? they get whatever they want. They can make any changes they need to for the betterment of the boat; no matter what the cost or the time involved. Today, I?ve got 36 boats working and 18 safety people. It?s my most costly division and there?s no doubt it brings in the most in terms of return.? Guidry points to today?s Gulf of Mexico oil companies oper- ating in a post-Macondo world: ?They want safety. We are the only group with cameras on board monitoring safety with 180 tilt ? up and down/side to side, with 1000x zoom. From Alaska to French Guiana, we have someone watching the boats. We could use it for operations, but for us, it?s all about safety. The Flight to Quality: Pie-in-the-sky? Shane Guidry talks about the so-called ?two-tier? market. Todd Hornbeck calls it the ? ight to quality.? To date, how- ever, it hasn?t come to pass and Guidry himself freely admits that his shiny, high tech, environmentally correct tonnage still isn?t yielding an appreciably higher rate of return than boats costing tens of millions less. He also isn?t worried about it, ei- ther. According to the Harvey Gulf CEO, to understand where the market is going, you have to understand where it is today. ?Today, we have 36 boats out working, with nine under con- struction and two additional  rm commitments. Tidewater is prob- ably the largest operator, but in a fragmented market, that equates to less than 10 percent of the worldwide  eet. As we climb the ladder, the difference between us and a Tidewater, for example, is that we?re climbing the ladder with new assets. Tidewater has a lot of older assets, but they work them in places like the Middle East and Asia where perhaps the standard of the boat doesn?t yet matter as much as it might here in the Gulf of Mexico.? Continuing, Guidry insists, ?Tidewater is not the right com- pany to compare this sort of thing to. Why? Because they oper- ate older tonnage in a lot of areas where top quality and modern assets aren?t going to matter for a long time. Many places in the world are still okay with 25-30 year old boats that they?ll pay $9,000 to $12,000 per day for. Tidewater only has 3 percent of their boats here, and the ones they do have are new. If they want to compete in this market, they have to build or buy. That?s a management decision, of course ? do you play here or do you play somewhere else? You can?t be everywhere so you play where you think you have the highest chance for best returns.? Pointing to the local markets, Guidry sums it up by saying, ?In terms of our U.S. Gulf  eet, I think that Chouest is the largest, and then Todd and I are close ? if you take out all his DP-1 stuff. He does have a lot of boats under construction, so I?m not sure where we?ll end up. I think you could eventually see us end up with 70-to-75 DP-2 boats.? Moody?s Caveat: a non-Starter The Moody?s rating re ects the expectation that Harvey Gulf ?management will successfully handle any operational com- plexities arising from the material increase in its  eet size.? That caution is understandable for a company whose  eet has expanded from 15 to 49 vessels in a very short time span. In February, Harvey Gulf addressed those concerns when it tapped Mike Carroll to head up its New Construction and Spe- cial Projects. The new Senior Vice President will be Houston, Texas and brings with him 15 years of experience in the  eld of Naval Architecture and ship construction. But, bringing in Carroll from STX wasn?t Guidry?s only move in that regard. ?We also hired another from STX. They?re part of that ?ramp up?. We have drydocks being built in one shipyard in Louisana; boats being stretched at Bollinger, in Gulfport and Florida. We have  ve shipyards building for us right now. We also have to run our vessels and maintain our  eet and dry- docking schedules. By April of 2016, we?ll have 49 boats. It hasn?t been too long since we only had 15. Back then, we had 35 in-house people and today, we have 120. On the boats, we?ve gone from 200 to over 700.? The Harvey Charter Plan Shane Guidry?s strategy when it comes to deploying his  eet is a simple one. Guidry says  atly, ?There are other groups with more folks and boats, but we don?t play in the DP1 arena. It?s not high quality enough for us. I run my company differ- ently. Our goal is to get 5-year charters for our boats. Today, 36 I Maritime Professional I 3Q 2013MP #3 34-49.indd 36MP #3 34-49.indd 369/10/2013 10:17:21 AM9/10/2013 10:17:21 AM