Tidewater Celebrates Half Century Mark, Invests in Future
That was then: The M/V EBB TIDE, built in 1955, was the first purpose built supply boat to the offshore oil industry.
By Matt Gresham, contributing writer
Tidewater Inc. executives celebrated a half-century managing the volatile offshore oil and gas industry in 2006, all the while planning for the next 50 years and beyond. The New Orleans based offshore marine firm, which owns the world's largest fleet of vessels serving the global energy sector, survived industry downturns and threats of hostile takeovers through the years. However, the company's 49th year was one for the record books: surviving back-to-back natural disasters in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"Did we have a hurricane plan? Yes. Did we follow it? Yes. Did we anticipate something like Katrina? No," said Joe Bennett, Tidewater's spokesman. But Tidewater weathered those storms, just as it did the ups and downs of the oil and gas industry. "We didn't miss a lick. Didn't miss a payment, a payroll or a job," Bennett said. "We have 8,000 employees worldwide and our headquarters is right smack dab in the middle of New Orleans. So, we were very proud of how it turned out." Today, Tidewater is investing heavily in new-build programs to replace aging ves-
sels and impressing Wall Street investors with record net earnings of $356.6 million, or $6.31 per share, for fiscal 2007. Dean E. Taylor, Tidewater's chairman, president and CEO, called the results the "very best" in Tidewater's 51-year history. "These results are reflective of our recent efforts to execute on our strategic plan to renew and upgrade our fleet to be better positioned to service the growing international marine transportation needs of our customers," Taylor said. In the most recent quarter, which ended in June, Tidewater reported further increases in day rates helped spur earn-
ings of $87.5 million, or $1.55 per share, for the company's first three months of its 2008 fiscal year. Those results were up from $71.4 million, or $1.23 per share, for the same period one year ago. Tidewater's long-held status of industry leader can be traced to a single-room rented office with a handful of employees and plans for its first vessel scribbled on a plain brown lunch sack. In 1951, Alden J. "Doc" Laborde invented the first-ever freestanding offshore drilling rig dubbed the "Mr. Charlie." Named after Charles Murphy, the principal of ten investors -- including Laborde - who founded Ocean
28 � MarineNews � September, 2007