Kirby Corporation’s roots trace to 1921, when Houston entrepreneur John Henry Kirby founded Kirby Petroleum Company, an oil and gas venture whose name later carried into marine transportation. Over the decades Kirby shifted from energy holdings toward moving liquid bulk by water, assembling a portfolio of towboats and tank barges and acquiring long-tenured operators such as Dixie Carriers and Sabine Towing. By the late 1990s the company consolidated its inland operations as Kirby Inland Marine, reflecting a focus on barge transportation rather than upstream assets.
Today the enterprise is organized around two complementary segments: Marine Transportation and Distribution & Services. Marine Transportation centers on moving petrochemicals, black oil, refined products, and agricultural chemicals by tank barge across U.S. inland and coastal waters. Distribution & Services provides aftermarket support for engines, transmissions, and industrial equipment, along with parts and field service for energy and industrial customers—an offering that pairs asset operation with technical support for power and propulsion systems.
Kirby’s operating footprint spans the Mississippi River System and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, with additional coastal and ocean routes that link major refining and chemical hubs; partnerships and assets extend service along all three U.S. coasts and to Alaska and Hawaii. The network is built around linehaul tows, fleeting areas, and coastal tug-barge units sized for a range of cargoes, giving shippers options from inland movements to coastwise voyages and feeder service. Periodic acquisitions have added barges, towboats, and shipyard capacity to this grid, strengthening coverage in core corridors.
Across industry profiles and company materials, Kirby is consistently described as a premier U.S. tank barge operator with a long history serving chemical and petroleum supply chains. Its identity is tied to the specialty craft of liquid bulk transport—coordinating terminals, towboats, and barge fleets—and to a services arm that maintains engines and equipment used across marine and industrial settings. That combination of inland/coastal barge operations and technical services has made Kirby a familiar name in North American marine transportation.