THE BOSS of Aberdeen’s biggest company Wood said this morning that it had made a good start to 2023.
The leading consulting and engineering business is now increasing the full-year guidance for revenue and profits.
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The group reported that adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) were £158million in the first half of 2023. This is 8.5% ahead of the same period last year.
Revenue for the six months totalled £2.336billion – an improvement of 16.2% on the first half of 2022.
CEO Ken Gilmartin said: “When we announced our growth strategy in November last year, we set out a plan for Wood to deliver on its significant potential, and I am delighted that our results show the clear progress we are making.
“We have made a good start to the year, delivering growth in revenue, EBITDA, headcount and our pipeline.
He added: “As we look ahead, we are confident that our actions, the business model we have implemented and the market growth opportunities to which we have aligned, support the momentum we are building in our business. As such, we are increasing our full-year guidance for the year for revenue and EBITDA.”
Wood’s worldwide workforce is now around 36,000, with more than 6,000 of them in the UK. The Granite City team currently totals 4,500.
The company said today that the first half had continued the positive momentum seen at the end of 2022, including strong trading across both quarters.
It continued: “Our order book at June 2023 was around $6billion (£4.69billion) – up 5% compared to December 2022 at constant currency and excluding the Gulf of Mexico labour operations business sold in the period.”
Significant contract wins across energy this year include:
- A $250million (£195million) contract extension in South-east Asia for operations and brownfield engineering services.
- A new global framework agreement with Shell for Wood to deploy its expertise in decarbonisation, digitalisation and asset-life extension to enhance Shell’s assets worldwide.
- Pre-FEED (front end engineering design) for blue ammonia and carbon capture for a client in the Middle East.
Significant wins in materials include:
- A large engineering services contract with Euro Manganese for sustainable mineral processing.
- A $50million (£39million) life sciences engineering contract in the US with GSK.
- A FEED and engineering, procurement and construction management contract for Clean Planet Energy’s plastics recycling facilities across the US.
Wood also said today that chief financial officer David Kemp is to retire. He joined the firm in 2013 as CFO of the former Wood Group PSN business and was appointed CFO in May 2015.
