Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2024 Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Corporation's learning conference call. At this time, all participants are in the 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 your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Tina Blaginskis, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to our third 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 Kornblau. 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 refer 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 Lasse.

Thank you, Tina. Great Lakes has a strong third quarter, demonstrating excellent product performance and significant wins in the bid market. For the third quarter, we achieved net income of $8.9 million and adjusted EBITDA of $27 million. During the quarter, Great Lakes secured $543 million in new contracts, including six beach re-nourishment projects that captured 79% of the coastal protection markets And three port deepening projects that accounted for 81% of the capital project bid market. And a significant win was the large hopper dredge project, Sabine Natchez Contract 6 deepening project, with a total value of $235 million. That included both the base scope and open options. By the end of the third quarter, we achieved a record backlog of $1.2 billion. along with an additional $465 million in pending award low bids and options, providing utilization and revenue visibility well into 2026. After the quarter closed, two projects totaling $90 million that were in low bids pending award at the end of the third quarter converted to awarded status. In our backlog are two large port deepening projects related to LNG export facilities, the Port Arthur LNG Phase 1 project, and the Brown Swill Ship Channel project for the next decade. Dredging operations started on both of these capital projects in the third quarter slightly later than previously expected, but now progressing well. The Biden administration's temporary pause on approving new LNG export licenses have not impacted our two awarded projects. Our newest hopper dredge, the Galveston Island, was delivered in January this year, and she has gotten off to a great start with solid project performance. We held the naming ceremony for her in the Galveston Harbor on October 25th, and she is now back at work in Texas. Her sister ship, the Amelia Island, is expected to be delivered in the second half of 2025 and will also go straight to work on projects already in backlog as the Galveston Island did. These dredges are specifically designed to be efficient on beach rebuild projects like the six projects we recently have been awarded. We remain steadfast in our long-term strategy to enter the U.S. offshore wind market. The Acadia, the first U.S.-flagged Jonesac-compliant vessel designed for subsea rock installation, is currently under construction at the Philly shipyard. As announced by Philly earlier this year, they have reached a deal to sell the yard to a Korean shipyard group, with regulatory approvals expected later this year. We have met with a prospective new owner and are optimistic that the high priority and planned investments into the yard will have a positive impact on the next phases of the Arcadia build, should the transaction be completed. The Arcadia is contracted to install rock foundations on Equinox Empire Wind 1, scheduled for a 2025 start. and to perform rock placement to protect subsea cables on the Earth's Sunrise Wind Project scheduled for 2026. At the end of the third quarter, our offshore wind backlog was 44.6 million, with an additional 12.7 million options pending award. Offshore wind is pivotal for the U.S. to secure its long-term energy needs and objectives. and we expect this to lead to significant long-term growth opportunity for Great Lakes. Additionally, the Arcadia is well-suited for international offshore wind projects, as well as rock protection over pipelines in the oil and gas and carbon capture market, and cable protection in the telecommunication and power cable sectors. We have pre-qualified and tendered on a number of rock placement projects for the Arcadia for the remainder of the decade, both in the U.S. and internationally. The very positive interest from the offshore wind developers for Arcadia is manifested by post-quarter end. We signed the first vessel reservation agreement and are currently negotiating a second with two different offshore wind developers for projects in the United States with planned rock installation through 2029. And I'll turn the call over to Scott to further discuss the results for the quarter, and then I'll provide further commentary around the markets and our business.