Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2024 Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Corp Earnings Call Conference Call. At this time, everybody is in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand over the conference to our first speaker today, Tita Beginkas, Director of Investor Relations. Go ahead, Tina.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2024 conference call. Joining me on the call this morning is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Lassa Pettersson, and our Chief Financial Officer, Scott Kormlow. LASA will provide an update on the events of the quarter, then Scott will continue with an update on our financial results for the quarter. LASA will conclude with an update on the outlook for the business and market. Following their comments, there will be an opportunity for questions. During this call, we will make certain forward-looking statements to help you understand our business. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. Certain risk factors inherent in our business are set forth in our earnings release and in filings with the SEC, including our 2023 Form 10-K and subsequent filings. During this call, we also referred to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, which are explained in the net income to adjusted EBITDA reconciliation attached to our earnings release. and posted on our investor relations website along with certain other operating data. With that, I will turn the call over to Lhasa.

Thank you, Tina. Great Lakes concluded the first quarter with good financial results, marking the best EBITDA quarter since the fourth quarter of 2021. During the quarter, the majority of our fleets were active on projects and performing well. Additionally, our new hopper dredge, the Galveston Island, was successfully commissioned and started operations contributing to the project performance in the first quarter. After suffering the aftereffects of COVID and delays in bidding of major projects from the Army Corps of Engineers the last two years, we are now back to more normal operations. In 2023, we secured five major project awards, including the Freeport Channel Deepening Project, the Sabine Natchez Waterway Channel Improvement Project, The Port Arthur LNG Phase 1 channel improvement project and the Brownsville Ship Channel project for next decade's Rio Grande LNG project. Subcontractor work to build and improve the containment areas has started on both LNG projects, with main dredging operations expected to commence mid-year of 2024. In 2023, we were also awarded a large reservoir dredge project in Puerto Rico. We have mobilized our dredge and pipeline in the reservoir, and dredging operations started during the second quarter. Our dredging backlog is strong. At the end of the quarter, it was $879 million, with 77% of our backlog in capital projects. With a record 2024 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers budget of $8.7 billion that was approved in the first quarter, the bid market is expected to be robust in the second and third quarters, providing us with a good opportunity to maintain a solid backlog. Modernizing our fleet with our new build program is a key factor in continuing to be a competitive market leader for the long term. We have made significant progress on our new program with the delivery of our newest mid-size upper dredge, the Galveston Island, which now is in operation and performing well. Her sister ship, the Amelia Island, is expected to be delivered in 2025. In 2023, we were honored to have President Biden attend the steel-cutting ceremony for Great Lakes Offshore Wind Rock Installation Vessel, the Arcadia. The Acadia is the first and only U.S. flag Jones Act-compliant inclined four-pipe vessel for subsea rock installation. This month, we achieved another significant milestone with her keel laying at the Philly shipyard, marking the start of the assembly phase of the vessel's construction. The Acadia's current schedule is to install rock foundations for Equinor's Empire Wind 1 in 2025, and rock protection for the subsea cables on Ørsted's Sunrise project in 2026. In spite of the negative headlines on offshore wind in late 2023, we have this year seen new tendering rounds for power purchase agreements and offshore wind leases. Our offshore wind initiative presents Great Lakes with a strong growth opportunity in a rapidly expanding industry. which will diversify our business activities and broaden our client base. To support the new build program and provide additional liquidity for Great Lakes, in April, we entered into a $150 million second lien credit agreement with Guggenheim Credit Services. This also provides us with additional capacity to issue letter of credits for new tenders and contracts. as letters of credits are the most commonly required in oil and gas and offshore wind industries, unlike the government works where performance bonds are the preferred instruments. And I'll turn the call over to Scott to further discuss the results of the quarter and provide more details on our financing, and then I'll provide some commentary around the market and our business.