North American Construction Group (NACG) is targeting Western Australia mining contract starts in 2026 as it looks to tap what CEO Joe Lambert sees as the Canadian company’s “biggest organic growth opportunity”.
Having started work for Aeris Resources at the Tritton copper mine in New South Wales, NACG will look to build its hard-rock exposure Australia-wide using the MacKellar Group platform acquired for C$395 million in 2023. MacKellar gave NACG entry into Queensland’s metallurgical and thermal coal sectors, complementing its Canadian oil sands bulk mining business, and a foundation to expand on Down Under.
Speaking to analysts after the company posted its 2025 first-quarter financial results, Lambert again highlighted aggressive growth plans after dismissing the negative effects of weather in eastern Australia and Canada in the first three months of the year.
“The Australian contractor marketplace is massive and growing,” he said.
“Western Australia in particular is 50% of the active mines in the entire country and we have less than a 1% share of that market. We have just started to see initial tender packages and budgetary proposals coming out of Western Australia and believe we will begin to receive RFPs [requests for proposal] in late Q2 or early Q3 for 2026 project starts.”
Lambert said NACG had hit a record C$1.5 billion trailing 12-month revenue rate. Its 2025 full-year outlook is for adjusted EBITDA in the $415-445 million range on group revenue of $1.4-1.6 billion. The company’s plus-$3.5 billion revenue backlog “provides visibility to [a] midpoint of $1.5 billion”.
He said NACG’s Australian operations were now generating more than 60% of its EBTDA. Australian 2025 revenue was expected to grow by more than 25% this year, “primarily from contracts won in the second half of 2024”.
Even heavier summer rains than usual hit Queensland coal mining and NACG’s Australian fleet utilisation in Q1. Meanwhile, an extended bitter cold snap in Canada impacted equipment utilisation there. Weather notwithstanding, the contractor wants to get its average fleet utilisation in Australia above 85% (from 82% at the end of 2024) and to 75% in Canada. Technology in the form of advanced machine telematics is expected to play a part.
Lambert said the company was also primed to grow its civil infrastructure business on the back of a forecast significant uplift in public and private investment in the US, Canada and Australia.
“Aging infrastructure, energy transition, climate resiliency and tariff threats pushing nations to seek more resource independence are all driving what we believe is a vastly growing opportunity in the civil infrastructure market,” he said.
“We see the desired speed for development also lowering the risk for contractors.
“The growing opportunity and lower risk is why we believe we can build our infrastructure business to about 25% of our overall business in the next three years.
“We have a new executive member starting with us in a couple of months [July] and she will be leading our infrastructure business in what we see as an exciting area for growth.”
He said with current trade tariffs NACG expected “negligible” business impact in 2025.
“We have had two vendors identify increases in cost due to tariffs. One is a US engine manufacturer who had advised of a 3-4% increase due to tariffs, which isn’t far beyond normal expected annual increases. The other is a US-based tyre manufacturer for ultra class truck tyres, which has a 25% tariff increase in pricing,” Lambert said.
“There are limited [other] ultra class tyre manufacturers.
“Overall we expect the tariffs to potentially raise our internal costs by less than one-half of 1% over the next year should the tariffs remain in place.”
