McDermott International: LNG, Offshore EPC & Lummus Technology 2026

McDermott International is a Houston-based engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) contractor operating across LNG, offshore energy, downstream processing, and energy transition projects globally. Following its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in January 2020 and emergence from restructuring in June 2020, McDermott operates as a private company — no longer listed on any public exchange — with a refocused portfolio that separates it from the pre-bankruptcy combined entity. Crucially, CB&I (Chicago Bridge & Iron) was separated from McDermott during the restructuring and now operates independently; the two are no longer affiliated companies.

McDermott International Overview

McDermott’s origins date to 1923 when J. Ray McDermott founded a marine contracting business in New Orleans. The company grew through the 20th century into one of the world’s pre-eminent offshore pipeline and platform installation contractors, before a series of transformational transactions reshaped its structure. The 2018 acquisition of CB&I for approximately $6 billion — intended to create an integrated onshore and offshore EPC powerhouse — proved financially unsustainable under the combined entity’s debt load, leading to the 2020 Chapter 11 filing.

Post-restructuring, McDermott emerged with a significantly reduced debt burden, CB&I separated out, and a renewed focus on its core offshore and onshore EPC competencies. The company is privately held by its creditor-turned-equity holders, including institutional investors and hedge funds that participated in the debt-to-equity conversion. It is led by President and CEO Samik Mukherjee, who succeeded Michael McKelvy following the restructuring.

Core Capabilities: Offshore and Onshore EPC

McDermott’s primary business segments cover offshore and subsea engineering and installation — including offshore platforms, fixed and floating production systems, subsea pipelines, and associated structures — and onshore/EPC, covering LNG, gas processing, refining, petrochemicals, and downstream industrial facilities. The company operates fabrication facilities in Louisiana, Mexico, and Dubai, supporting both North American and international project delivery.

In LNG, McDermott has been involved in several of the largest North American export terminal projects. Its work on Golden Pass LNG in Texas (for ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy), Freeport LNG, and Cameron LNG in Louisiana established it as a major LNG EPCI contractor. The North American LNG infrastructure build that drives McDermott’s LNG workload is covered in our analysis of the 2026 LNG storage infrastructure surge.

McDermott competes directly with Bechtel, Technip Energies, Saipem, and Subsea7 across its various market segments. Its competitive position rests on its project execution track record in technically complex LNG and offshore work, its fabrication yard capacity, and — critically — the Lummus Technology portfolio.

Lummus Technology: The Process Technology Asset

One of McDermott’s most strategically valuable assets post-restructuring is Lummus Technology — a process technology licensing business covering ethylene production, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), refining, clean fuels, and petrochemical processes. Lummus holds proprietary technologies licensed to refineries and petrochemical plants globally, generating recurring technology fee income that is more stable than project-based EPC revenue.

Lummus Technology was retained within the McDermott group after the 2020 restructuring and has been marketed as a distinct value creation asset. Its ethylene technology — covering the steam cracking process used to produce the world’s most widely used petrochemical building block — is deployed in dozens of crackers globally. In the energy transition context, Lummus has developed clean hydrogen, carbon capture, and sustainable fuels process technologies that extend its relevance beyond conventional hydrocarbon processing. McDermott’s technology licensing position sits within the broader competitive landscape covered in our profile of Bechtel LNG Terminal and Energy Infrastructure.

Separation from CB&I: What It Means

The most important factual correction to the previous version of this profile: CB&I is not part of McDermott. The two companies separated during McDermott’s 2020 bankruptcy restructuring, with CB&I re-emerging as an independently owned company under new private equity ownership led by Mason Capital Management. They now compete in overlapping markets — both pursue LNG and gas infrastructure EPC work — but operate entirely separately with distinct ownership, management, and balance sheets.

This matters significantly for anyone assessing McDermott’s capabilities: the world-class full-containment LNG tank construction and aboveground storage tank expertise resides with CB&I, not McDermott. McDermott’s LNG capability is in liquefaction process systems, offshore loading infrastructure, and associated EPCI work — complementary to CB&I’s storage tank specialisation but not the same. Our full profile of CB&I as an independent company covers its current capabilities and the Petrofac Asset Solutions acquisition.

2026 Position and Commercial Outlook

As a private company, McDermott does not publish quarterly earnings or backlog figures in the public domain. The company has consistently maintained that it is focused on sustainable project margins and selective pursuit of large LNG, offshore, and downstream EPCI contracts rather than volume-driven revenue growth that contributed to the pre-bankruptcy difficulties.

In the Middle East, McDermott continues to execute work for Saudi Aramco — including offshore platform and subsea pipeline work on the Marjan field expansion — and for ADNOC in the UAE. These national oil company relationships represent the most commercially stable portion of its project portfolio. In North America, its LNG project exposure and Lummus Technology licensing revenues underpin its competitive positioning in the post-restructuring era. The broader competitive EPC landscape is covered in our roundup of the top engineering and construction companies in 2026.

McDermott International Company Snapshot

[VERIFY before publishing] — As a private company, McDermott does not publish audited financial results in the public domain. The revenue figure of “$6.4 billion” cited in the previous version of this article has not been independently confirmed from a recent public source. The snapshot above omits revenue and backlog figures for this reason. If current financial data becomes available from a credible industry source, update accordingly.