SULPHUR, La, Nov. 20, 2009 – West Calcasieu Port officials have announced that F. Miller Construction, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Orion Marine Group, Inc. (NYSE: ORN), has become the port’s newest tenant.
F. Miller Construction recently completed the relocation of its equipment yard from Highway 90 East in Lake Charles to its new facility on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) waterfront at the port located 12 miles south of I-10 on Highway 27. The relocation enables the company to expand its operations in the Louisiana market.
A formal event co-hosted by the Chamber/Southwest Louisiana and the West Calcasieu Association of Commerce marked the corporate sign unveiling at the port today.
“Bringing an internationally recognized marine construction company into our family of tenants with the stature of Orion Marine Group truly underscores the efforts being taken by the West Calcasieu Port board of commissioners to grow and expand maritime commerce and industry along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Calcasieu Parish,” said Brent Clement, president of the WCP board.
“F. Miller Construction has played an important role in the evolution of Southwest Louisiana’s maritime business community for a long time,” Clement explained. “The potential for our regional economic development to grow and prosper comes into play when you have a 45-year-old public entity entering into a working partnership with a quality publicly traded marine construction company that has decades of successful operations and work history.”
In 2006, Orion Marine Group purchased F. Miller Construction, a 75-year-old Louisiana-based company in order to expand its operations in Louisiana.
Orion Marine Group provides a broad range of marine construction and specialty services on, over and under the water along the Gulf Coast, the Atlantic Seaboard and the Caribbean Basin and acts as a single source turn-key solution for its customers' marine contracting needs.
Its heavy civil marine construction services include marine transportation facility construction, marine pipeline construction, marine environmental structures, dredging, and specialty services. Its specialty services include salvage, demolition, diving, surveying, towing and underwater inspection, excavation and repair.
“Orion owns and operates a fleet of nearly 400 vessels and specialized pieces of marine equipment to meet even the most-challenging projects or situations,” said Mike Pearson, Orion Marine Group’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our relocation to the West Calcasieu Port gives our marine construction teams the GIWW waterfront access needed to support our continued growth in the Louisiana market as well as along the entire Gulf Coast.
“By locating F. Miller’s equipment yard to the shore of the GIWW, we are afforded the luxury of having strategically located equipment more readily available to water access in order to support our Lake Charles and New Orleans offices,” he added. “An additional benefit of the relocations will be our ability to self-maintain our marine equipment at our own facility.
“We are very pleased with this new facility and look forward to a long-term partnership with the West Calcasieu Port,” Pearson concluded.
The WCP offers 2,500 feet of waterfront property on the GIWW. Other tenants include Devall Towing and Devall Diesel. Current tenant activity includes barge operations, maritime fueling service, diesel repair, heavy-equipment contracting and maritime supply operations.
