South Carolina, USA-headquartered Stevens Towing reported a positive first half of the year, its tug and barge fleet reporting an extremely busy second quarter, with the project cargo market continuing to strengthen.
The company said that it has had “every boat running hard while also squeezing in a few USCG COI dry dock inspections”. With high demand for project cargo shipments, Stevens Towing is, “trying to manage our fleet as efficiently as possible to support the growing demand. In doing so we also made the decision to take on some additional equipment via long-term charter to better support all customers.” The company has been fortunate in supporting some major power generation projects throughout the second quarter of 2025, in addition to some large infrastructure projects, it stated.
In terms of market outlook, Stevens Towing said there is clear consensus that there is a lot of work to be done in the coming year to keep up with demands from the USA’s power sector, some of which is being accelerated by large data centres starting to come online. “Given the current demand, there is a shortage of equipment to perform these projects and lead times to build new equipment is a way out,” said the company.
Among its notable projects, the company was hired by Barnhart to work closely in developing a transportation plan to deliver a Siemens generator to a power plant in Providence, Rhode Island. Barge transportation was the ideal solution for speed to get the new generator from Charleston, South Carolina.
This generator was railed down from Charlotte, North Carolina to Charleston, where it used the 500-ton lift capacity crane Ocean Ranger to load the unit from railcar to barge. Due to limitations at the roll off site in Providence, a 140 ft x 40 ft (42.7 m x 12.2 m) ABS deck barge was used for this delivery. To avoid delays associated with over-the-road permits, the team selected a boat landing in Providence, connected to the power plant via a private road, as the discharge site.
The challenge: floating docks on both sides left just 27 ft (8.2 m) of clearance – which was too narrow for the generator. Although removing pilings was not permitted, stripping away the docks created 41 ft 6 in (12.65 m) of space between the existing piles. A local marine contractor removed the docks; a spud barge was then used to position the cargo barge alongside, ensuring no pressure was placed on the remaining dock infrastructure.
In April 2025, Stevens Towing made several key leadership promotions.
