Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Ramps Up LNG: What Does It Say for 2026?

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation GLDD is witnessing robust demand trends for dredging across the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) market, especially by the private companies in the United States. The demand for this service has been gaining momentum due to the increased demand for U.S. LNG exports attributed to the ongoing global political conflicts. This shift in demand has resulted in the need to expand existing operating facilities and construct new ones.

This Texas-based dredging services provider is banking on this favorable market trend due to its ability to manage large-scale projects and offer diversified services, like channel deepening and berth dredging, making it a good fit compared with its market players. Moreover, GLDD’s new build program, which focuses on renewing and modernizing its fleet, adds to the tailwinds, boosting its revenue visibility in the long term and offering a competitive edge.

Currently, GLDD is optimistic about moving forward with the Woodside Louisiana LNG project, for which dredging services are expected to begin early 2026 and will be included in its second-quarter 2025 backlog. Besides this, the ongoing projects include the Port Arthur LNG Phase 1 Project and the Brownsville Ship Channel Project for the Next Decade Corporation’s Rio Grande LNG Project, which it received in 2023.

In the first quarter of 2025, the company reported 22.2% year-over-year revenue growth, with a substantial dredging backlog of $1 billion, up from $879.4 million reported last year. Owing to the favorable market fundamentals, the analysts are bullish, indicating revenue estimates to grow year over year by 7% and 4.6% in 2025 and 2026, respectively.

GLDD Stock’s Price Performance vs Other Heavy Construction Firms

Shares of GLDD have trended upward 27.1% in the past three months, outperforming the Zacks Building Products - Heavy Construction industry, the broader Zacks Construction sector and the S&P 500 index.

Sharing space with GLDD, other market players including Orion Group Holdings, Inc. ORN and EMCOR Group, Inc. EME seem to be banking on the favorable market fundamentals. In the past three months, Orion Group has gained 46.5%, standing above GLDD, but EMCOR is hovering below with a share price performance of 17.5%.

GLDD’s Discounted Valuation Trend

GLDD’s current valuation looks promising for investors. The stock is currently trading at a discount compared with the industry peers, with a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 12.26X. The discounted valuation of the stock, compared with its peers, advocates for an attractive entry point for investors. That said, in the long term, the valuation could move toward a premium, given the strong market fundamentals backing the company’s revenue visibility and profitability.

Notably, Orion Group and EMCOR are currently trading at a forward 12-month P/E ratio of 31.32X and 19.81X, respectively, which is higher than the current valuation trend of Great Lakes Dredge & Dock.

Earnings Estimate Revision of GLDD

GLDD’s earnings estimates for 2025 and 2026 have trended upward in the past 60 days by 39.1% to 96 cents per share and 11.8% to 95 cents per share, respectively. The estimated figure for 2025 implies 14.3% year-over-year growth, with the same for 2026 indicating a 0.4% decline.

EPS Trend

The stock currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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