Edison Chouest Offshore — Company directory

Family-owned Louisiana marine group that designs, builds and operates more than 200 offshore support vessels through its own shipyards, port terminals and subsea companies.

Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) is a privately held marine group founded in 1960 and headquartered at Cut Off, Louisiana, with a second office in Houston, Texas. It designs, engineers, builds, owns and operates offshore service and supply vessels, supports the majority of deepwater operations in the US Gulf of Mexico and deploys tonnage to South America, Africa and other international markets. The company states that it employs more than 21,000 people worldwide, about 15,000 of them in the United States.

Shipbuilding

Most ECO vessels are designed, engineered and built inside the group. North American Shipbuilding was founded at Larose, Louisiana, in 1974 and its record includes the first US Antarctic icebreaking research vessel, the first dynamically positioned vessel in the US fleet and the world's first floating production system installation vessel. LaShip is the largest yard in the family and works alongside Gulf Ship, Tampa Ship and Navship; the group describes the network as the largest privately owned shipbuilding capacity in the United States and says more than 6,000 personnel are engaged in shipbuilding operations on a daily basis. ECO is investing over USD 150 million in automation, robotics and advanced manufacturing, and the Top Ship facility at Gulfport, Mississippi, is being used for defence production work.

Ports and terminals

Terminal operations are concentrated at Port Fourchon, where C-Port was conceived in 1996 as a multi-service terminal to cut vessel turnaround time; three C-Port facilities now operate 24 specialised slips around the clock for deepwater vessels. In Brazil, B-Port has opened as a logistics support base and naval repair shipyard at the Port of Açu in São João da Barra, northern Rio de Janeiro state, and is designed to have nine slips 25.2 metres wide. C-Logistics, Martin Terminal and C-Terminal complete the published network, which issues annual objectives and targets and QHSE policies for the port facilities.

Fleet and vessel classes

The fleet numbers more than 200 vessels built around specific jobs.

Anchor handling towing supply vessels, described as the muscle of the fleet, used to tow, moor and supply deepwater rigs; the 288-class Max Chouest is cited as an example.
Platform supply and multi-purpose supply vessels for cargo, fluids and complex deepwater support work.
Light construction vessels delivering light well intervention: maintenance and repair, mechanical installation, perforation, zone isolation, fluid sampling, chemical treatment and production testing.
Oil spill response vessels, fast supply vessels and specialty units used for seismic work, subsea support and research.

Subsea, decommissioning and environmental affiliates

Subsea capability sits mainly in C-Innovation, which provides ROV and light well intervention services; Lucas Cribley was named its chief executive in August 2026. The group has bought into the segment repeatedly, acquiring the ROV company ROVOP in May 2024, the Norwegian designer and ROV business Kystdesign in March 2025, the decommissioning specialist Champagne Energy Solutions in March 2026 and the Alliance companies from Helix Energy Solutions in May 2026. Other affiliates include BRAM Offshore, which runs Brazilian operations with anchor handling, platform supply, oil spill response, fast supply, well service and stimulation and ROV supply vessels; American Recovery, established in 1999, which handles recycling and waste management across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama; and Clean Waste, an exploration and production waste processing plant at Port Fourchon.

Defence and 2026 developments

On 20 April 2026 ECO announced a strategic partnership with Anduril Industries to design and build next-generation defence maritime vessels in the United States, with Anduril as prime contractor and ECO as shipbuilder and systems integrator, starting at Top Ship in Gulfport and using Chouest port facilities for testing. The company also entered the United Shipbuilding Alliance (USA) with Bollinger Shipyards in May 2025 to accelerate US Arctic icebreaking capacity, and in May 2026 HD Hyundai Robotics won an order for robotic welding solutions for its smart yard programme. Earlier work included construction, begun in March 2022, of a vessel to support the Ørsted and Eversource offshore wind farms. Contact is by telephone and web form: the group publishes no general e-mail address on its contact page.