Cenac fleet sold to nationwide marine transport leader

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January 31, 2019
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One of Houma’s pioneer marine transport companies has announced a major shift in one aspect of its operations, which its owner says will ultimately enhance another.


Cenac Marine Services LLC, a privately held company, and Kirby Inland Marine, a publicly traded nationwide transport firm, have announced an agreement by which Kirby will acquire Cenac’s fleet of 36 tugs and 63 barges. According to information supplied by both firms, Cenac’s marine crews will continue working for Kirby and the Cenac vessels are expected to navigate on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and other routine routes.

Kirby stated Thursday morning that the sale involved the payment of approximately $244 million in cash.

Cenac’s vessel repair and construction operations, including recently acquired Main Iron Works, will continue under its ownership and management. Vessels of the existing Kirby fleet and those newly acquired, will be among those serviced at Main Iron Works facilities. The company’s campus on La. 182 has not been sold, and operations will continue at that location, company officials said.


“We welcome this opportunity for our vessels to integrate within Kirby Corporation’s fleet, while we independently foster growth for our company’s construction and maintenance operations,” Chief Executive Officer Arlen “Benny” Cenac, grandson of company founder Jock Cenac, said. “Our company has remained strong through the generations by adapting to new opportunities within the oil, gas and marine transport industries and this continues in that tradition.”

According to Cenac, the transition will be an economic win for Terrebonne Parish. As a result of the transaction, he said, Houston-based Kirby will move some personnel and related operations resources to the parish. All of Kirby’s personnel and support operations, including those that involve its current employees living or working out of Terrebonne, Lafourche and St. Mary, were based in Houston.

“Kirby will now be operating a satellite office here,” Cenac said in an interview Thursday morning. “They will run their local crew changes out of Houma.”


Cenac said he would not have entered the deal without assurances that Kirby would be heavily involved with local community service efforts. That is an area in which Cenac, and his company, have earned a strong reputation, with multiple philanthropic ventures in education and other fields.

“We are confident that they will be a good corporate citizen in this parish just like we are,” Cenac said. “They employ many people over here but have never had an office or a facility here. They will be renting a facility, at our location. My current personnel crew, transferring to Kirby, will be operating that office for them. There is no loss of jobs involved here. There is the gain of bringing in a big company.”

The Cenac fleet has an estimated 1.9 billion barrels of capacity. They move petrochemicals, refined products, and black oil, including crude oil, residual fuels, feedstocks and lubricants on the lower Mississippi River, its tributaries, and the Intracoastal, for major oil companies and refineries.


The deal is expected to formally close late in the first quarter of this year.

“The acquisition of Cenac’s young fleet of well-maintained inland tank barges and modern boats is an ideal complement to Kirby’s operations,” said David Grzebinski, Kirby’s President and CEO. “Cenac has a strong history of operational excellence and is well respected by the industry and its customers. Cenac’s inland fleet … has an average age of only four years. Similarly, Cenac’s fleet of modern inland towboats and offshore tugboats has an average age of only six years. The addition of these vessels to Kirby’s fleet will not only reduce our average age profile, but also further enable us to avoid significant capital outlays for new vessels in the future.”

The Cenac name is iconic in the bayou region, not only for its marine brand with its familiar green and red trimmed vessels, but its community service tradition. Benny Cenac’s grandfather, Ovide “Jock” Cenac, utilized his oyster boats to service a fledgling oil and gas industry in Terrebonne Parish. Within a decade of Terrebonne’s 1917 gas well debut, Jock Cenac began converting his wind-powered schooners into motorized vessels fit for oil field duty.


Outfitted with Cummins diesel engines, the wooden barges were used for towing oil rigs and hauling crude oil for a company that would later become known as Texaco.

The relationship between Cenac and Kirby has steadily grown in recent years. Earlier this month Cenac announced completion on construction of the first of three vessels it is currently contracted to build for Kirby, the 2,680-hp inland towboat Bailey.

Kirby already has a foothold in the Houma area. The Kirby Engine Systems Inc. division includes Marine Systems, Inc. and Engine Systems Inc. Houma is one of that division’s twelve locations nationwide. KES provides 24-hour marine engine repair services, engine parts, marine engine sales and support for the marine transportation and oil & gas industries.


Cenac’s employees received assurances that changes for marine personnel from the greenest deckhands to the most experienced captains should be seamless. Cenac Marine Services has long boasted of the loyalty its employees have shown over the years, and that its people are its greatest asset. Cenac said the sale of assets involves no contradiction of that philosophy and that he has been assured of a stable switchover for affected employees.

“All of your contributions have helped our company succeed, even in difficult economic times for our industries,” Cenac told employees.

The decision to enter into an agreement with Kirby for the purchase of its marine assets, Cenac said, is consistent with the company’s philosophy of flexibility that has so far kept it in a profitable, secure and stable position despite the volatility of the industry it is associated with.


“We are in a different time in this business that takes new and different ways to make it all work,” Cenac said. “With all of us pulling the same way, we will continue our success. Every decision we make at our company is measured against the examples of entrepreneurship and courage of my grandfather. We are confident that Jock Cenac would be proud and pleased with this decision, and the good position it places us in for the future.”

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