Stonebriar Commercial Finance has funded year to date and is currently projected to fund through 2021 more than $355 million secured by Jones Act-compliant marine vessels, including tugs, barges, tankers and container ships. Stonebriar’s customers include maritime companies operating in a range of end-markets transporting commodities from petroleum products to consumer packaged goods.

“Maritime transportation has been a very attractive space for us,” Mark Gibson, vice president of capital markets at Stonebriar, said. “Recent safety and emissions regulatory changes for vessels operating in the inland river markets have resulted in a significant number of new long-lived assets coming online for operation in various industries within the Jones Act guidelines.”

“Our team has been very diligent in Stonebriar’s pursuit of well-structured transactions for long lived assets that hold their value over time,” Steve White, executive vice president and senior managing director of capital markets at Stonebriar, said. “We believe the Jones Act maritime market will strengthen as demand for petroleum products recovers to pre-pandemic levels, a significant number of the aging U.S. fleet are due for scrap, and very few new large capacity vessel deliveries are scheduled through 2023 due to limited shipyard construction capacity, all contributing to the right sizing of capacity in the market.”