Houma-based fabricator 43rd on Forbes top 200 list

Houma-based Gulf Island Fabrication, which builds gas and oilfield-drilling equipment, placed 43rd on Forbes Magazine’s 2007 list of America’s 200 Best Small Companies.

To qualify for the Forbes list, a company must take in yearly revenue between $5 million and $750 million, experience sustained sales, and have a share price above five dollars as of Oct. 1, among other factors.

Gulf Island had $413 million in revenue last year, and its sales growth over a five-year period was 84 percent. The company’s average growth rate over a five-year period was 18 percent.

“Basically, it’s the hard work of our dedicated employees,” said Gulf Island CEO Kerry Chauvin.

Much of the company’s sales growth can be attributed to Gulf Island’s acquisition of Texas-based Gulf Marine Fabricators in 2006, Chauvin said.

At the Gulf Marine subsidiary, Gulf Island is building the hull for MinDOC 3, an innovative floating platform that will be used to drill for oil and gas in deep water.

The topsides of the platform will be built in Houma.

Gulf Island, along with several engineers, developed the technology to create MinDOC 3, Chauvin said.

“Big hulls have been built overseas,” he said. “We wanted to be competitive in the U.S. In deep water, it’s harder for platforms to be fixed. They need to float.”

In January 2006, Gulf Island sold the MinDOC 3 technology, but later received the contract to build the platform for ATP Oil and Gas.

Gulf Marine is building a $26 million graving dock at its facility in Texas to construct MinDOC 3.

Chauvin said the graving dock is a 600-foot long, 250-foot wide and 40-foot deep hole in the ground where MinDOC 3’s hull will be built.

The dock will then be filled with water, the gates of the graving dock will be taken down and MinDOC 3 will float out of the fabrication yard.

Gulf Island has also been looking at building a $15 million dry dock at its Houma facility using money from a state fund.

The dry dock would be owned by the Port of Terrebonne, and leased by Gulf Island.

The company intends to pay the lease with cash payments or through job creation, Chauvin said.

“It would allow us to create jobs,” he said. “We’ve never used it (the state funding mechanism) before. This would be the first time we’re using such a program.”

Gulf Island has a revenue backlog of $245.2 million and a labor backlog of around 2.7 million man-hours on developing projects.

Sixty percent of the backlog in production is destined for international customers, Chauvin said.

“We’re working some of the backlog off,” he said. “We’re burning 900,000 man-hours a quarter.”

The Forbes list excludes banks and utilities.

It also leaves out companies experiencing legal troubles and which are loaded with excessive debt.

Gulf Island has placed on the small companies list in previous years, but never above 100.

Only two businesses in Louisiana landed higher on the list than Gulf Island, both of them home-healthcare providers: Lafayette-based LHC and Baton Rouge-based Amedysis.

Shares of Gulf Island have traded between $25.95 and $40.24 over a 52-week period.