Crescent Towing cuts fuel costs by optimising transits

Crescent Towing has reduced fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from its towage operations in the US by monitoring the behaviour of its masters as they transit between ship-handling jobs.

The US tugboat owner and Cooper Group subsidiary used software to monitor and analyse how vessel captains navigate their assets for a year, using LionRock Maritime’s PowerCaptain in Q1 2025 in a port before extending its use across the rest of its fleet operating on the Lower Mississippi River in Louisiana, and in harbours at Mobile, Alabama, and Savannah, Georgia.

“After the results came in, we quickly deployed it across all our operations,” said Crescent Towing senior operations manager Andrew White.

“The system monitors sailing speeds during transit and has effective performance scorecards for the captains and crews.”

PowerCaptain uses information from the automatic identification system (AIS) to locate and track vessel movements, including tugs operated by Crescent Towing, in this application.

It analyses these movements and provides insights to managers and crews, enabling them to manage vessel speeds and change behaviour to lower fuel consumption and emissions.

“The beauty of this product is that it does not require any installation on board as it just uses AIS data,” said Mr White.

“Within a matter of days after implementation, the captains started reducing their transit speeds to economical levels, when operationally possible. For us, it has translated into tangible fuel savings.”

PowerCaptain made Crescent Towing’s masters more aware of excessive speed when operating the tugboats they command, helping them to minimise this navigational behaviour.

“We have reduced fuel consumption, fuel costs and related CO2 emissions by 9% to 12%”

“By simply making our captains aware of their excessive speeding, we were able to reduce consumed fuel without further correction,” said Mr White.

“By operating this system, we have reduced fuel consumption, fuel costs and related CO2 emissions by 9% to 12%.”

This enables Crescent Towing to meet its social and financial responsibilities while improving compliance from transits and towage operations.

“With this system, we can do good for the planet, while also saving costs in our business. Rarely do you get this clear win-win,” said Mr White.

“Our goal in 2026 is to take a more proactive approach in acknowledging compliance, which we believe will further reduce consumption.”