Q. What is the official name of your company? Are you a subsidiary or affiliate of other companies?
A. Crowley Solutions, Inc. is wholly owned by Crowley Maritime Corporation, which owns a variety of subsidiaries, including TITAN Salvage, Jensen Maritime Consultants, Customized Brokers, Crowley Petroleum Distribution and Crowley Marine Services, Inc. Crowley Solutions is also a partner in several joint ventures, including UIC Bowhead-Crowley, LLC.
Q. What do you most want people to know about your company?
A. Crowley’s Solutions group is a project management organization offering marine engineering, procurement, construction and management services in addition to extensive marine transport expertise. Crowley operates worldwide and has operated continuously in the Arctic for more than 60 years. We leverage this experience to provide a wide variety of services and project solutions to our clients. In 2013 Crowley celebrated 60 years of service to Alaska.
Q. Where is your company located?
A. The Solutions team has offices in Anchorage, Prudhoe Bay, Houston, New Orleans, Lake Charles, Jacksonville, Seattle, Sakhalin Island and a new office opening in Singapore. Our petroleum distribution group has 24 offices and tank farms in Alaska. Our ship assist and tanker escort group has an office in Valdez, from which it serves the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company and its Ship Escort/Response Vessel System.
Q. What year was the company founded and by whom?
A. Our company was founded in 1892 by Thomas Crowley, the grandfather of current chairman, president and CEO Thomas B. Crowley Jr. The present structure, in which Crowley Maritime Corporation serves as a holding company for business lines and all subsidiaries, was put in place in 1992. The company is wholly and privately owned by the Crowley family and Crowley employees.
Q. What is your company’s primary business activity?
A. Crowley Solutions is a project management organization providing comprehensive marine services for energy and resource extraction industries. We offer a wide array of turnkey solutions to our clients, including project management, marine operations, naval architecture and marine salvage. Working with Crowley gives our customers the advantage of a single point of contact and ensures coordination among all of the company’s services. Our service offerings include project management, fuel management, engineering, vessel design and build, emergency response, ocean towing, heavy lift barge transportation, and project concept studies.
Q. What are some of your recent or current projects?
A. We are currently providing fuel management services for the tank farm facility at Pt. Thomson and barging from Prudhoe Bay to Pt. Thomson. We are transporting the Furie monopod platform from Texas to Alaska and will manage the installation of the platform and offshore pipeline. Ongoing operations include coastal barging services, spill response barge services, rig towing and hovercraft operations.
Q. How many employees does your company have?
A. Crowley’s domestic workforce is more than 4,500 employees, with 626 employees in Alaska. 16.3 percent of our domestic workforce has worked for the company more than 20 years.
Q. Describe the equipment your company uses. Are there any new equipment purchases planned?
A. Crowley’s Solutions team is taking delivery of two new 400’ x 120’ x 25’ heavy-lift deck (HDB) cargo barges for dedicated use in the Asia Pacific market in 2014. This will allow us to better support customers who are increasingly embarking on large-scale onshore and offshore projects, and require additional support and resources including full-service project management and logistics solutions.
Crowley also uses a fleet of high-bollard pull tugboats, including four industry-leading ocean class tugs, which are outfitted for long-range, high-capacity ocean towing; rig moves; platform and floating production; storage and offloading unit tows; emergency response and firefighting.
In the Arctic, we have a fleet of shallow draft tugs and barges that have been specifically designed to operate in the shallow waters of offshore Alaska. We also operate unique equipment, such as our Arctic Hawk hovercraft on the North Slope, where its unique capabilities allow operations during periods of broken ice offshore.
The company also has access to two jack-up barges for marine salvage project support.
Q. Is your company expanding any of its operations or locations?
A. Crowley recently expanded its presence in the Asia Pacific market by opening a new project management office in Singapore. The office can be contacted at +65 6809 2160.
Crowley has built new equipment to better support the requirements for larger modules and drilling rigs associated with work on Alaska’s North Slope and deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico. We are also working with companies leading exploration projects on the OCS in the Arctic.
Crowley will add four new 330,000-barrel, Jones Act product tankers to its fleet in 2015 and 2016, and will build two U.S.-flag, LNG-powered, combination container – Roll-On/Roll-Off (ConRo) ships, expected to be delivered in late 2017, for service between the U.S. mainland and Puerto Rico.
We also see a significant increase in Cook Inlet opportunities over the next few years, with increased exploration activities and proposed new pipelines.
Q. Is the company changing any of its services or products?
A. Crowley is now providing small-scale, containerized LNG transportation and logistics services to a wide variety of industrial customers throughout the Caribbean Basin who wish to reduce power costs and embrace a cleaner energy source. Additionally, Crowley is capable of providing a comprehensive suite of other LNG services, including vessel design and construction management; bulk LNG transportation; LNG product sales and distribution; and full-scale, project management solutions.
Q. What is your company’s main strength?
A. Crowley is set apart by our extensive Arctic experience, robust HSSE systems and management framework, comprehensive project management, in-house design and engineering support, access to the right equipment for the project, and above all, our employees.
Q. What is the most challenging work the company has undertaken?
A. Crowley Solutions is contracted to install the Furie monopod and offshore pipeline in Cook Inlet.
Additionally, TITAN Salvage, Crowley’s worldwide marine salvage, emergency response and wreck removal company based in Houston, Texas, recently completed the parbuckling (uprighting), refloating and removal of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy in the largest, most complex marine salvage in history.
Q. What are the biggest obstacles your company faces?
A. Probably the environmental conditions that we work in – short open-water marine seasons, shallow-draft operations, huge tidal variations and extreme weather conditions.
Q. What do you see as your company’s biggest challenge in the next five years?
A. The large growth in the market if OCS development proceeds and the Alaska Gas Pipeline is funded. There will be significant demand for specialized equipment and a highly skilled workforce to meet this demand.
Q. What is your company’s safety record?
A. Our most important core value is safety. Our safety management system and our intensive training program are key to Crowley’s impressive safety record.
Q. How does your company support the community?
A. Since 1984, Crowley has provided more than half-a-million dollars in scholarship funds to more than 275 students. Crowley has also donated about $2 million to education programs. In Alaska, Crowley supports several scholarships; provides training and employment opportunities through our partnership with AVTEC and First Alaskans Institute; and locally supports the communities we operate in. Crowley also supports charitable organizations through mentoring, volunteerism, fundraising and financial assistance.
Q. What your company’s Web site?
A. www.crowley.com
