How to Value a Quarry

HOW-TO · AUG 2026 · 3 MIN READ

Quarries trade on three quick metrics and close on one slow one. Here's how buyers actually triangulate value — the multiples that set the conversation, the DCF that sets the check, and the five drivers that explain why two quarries with identical tonnage sell for wildly different money.

01Start with the earnings multiple

Aggregates deals commonly clear at high-single to low-double-digit EBITDA multiples — quality assets in growth metros at the top, short-life or captive-market pits below. The multiple is shorthand for everything else on this list, which is why identical EBITDA can price 40% apart.

02Cross-check on dollars per annual ton

Enterprise value ÷ annual production tons. Recent US deals have ranged widely — roughly $15–40+ per annual ton — with location and reserve life doing the sorting. It's a crude yardstick, but it instantly flags a price that left the neighborhood.

03Check dollars per reserve ton

EV ÷ permitted, provable reserve tons. Pennies per ton for remote or short-permit rock; over a dollar for permitted reserves inside a growing metro's haul shed. This is the metric that prices the moat: permits and location, not machinery.

04Build the DCF that closes the deal

Real buyers pay on cash flow: tons × (price − cash cost) − sustaining capex, over the shorter of reserve life or permit horizon, discounted 8–12%. Terminal value only for what remains permitted and probable. The multiples anchor negotiation; this model writes the wire amount.

05Score the five real drivers

(1) Reserve life and permit runway — 30+ permitted years is the golden line. (2) Market position — freight advantage inside the haul shed is the whole business. (3) Quality — spec-friendly rock with clean ASR history versus product apologies. (4) Zoning/expansion room — can it grow, or is it surrounded. (5) Plant and stripping condition — deferred capex is a price reduction wearing a hard hat.

06Adjust for what the data room won't volunteer

Reclamation and bonding obligations, below-market legacy contracts, royalty burdens, water and air permit conditions, and pending neighbors' litigation all belong in the bridge from headline price to real price. Finding them is the entire point of due diligence.

The TrapPaying an operating multiple for a depleting asset. A quarry with nine permitted years isn't a business — it's a bond with dust. If reserve life is short, the multiple must fall toward the DCF of the remaining tons, no matter how pretty last year's EBITDA was.

Rule of ThumbThree yardsticks, one truth: EBITDA multiple to start the talk, $/annual-ton and $/reserve-ton to sanity it, DCF to end it. And permitted reserves near growth are the only moat in this industry.

This is ShotRock's home field — independent quarry and mine valuation support with the reserves verified, the permits read, and the red flags found before the wire goes out.

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Figures are approximate, compiled from public sources as of mid-2026, and rounded for readability. Rankings shift with markets, mergers, and new discoveries. Nothing here is investment, legal, or engineering advice for a specific site — for that, hire an engineer. We know one.