Shares in John Wood Group jumped 14.75p to 308.5p yesterday after the annual meeting heard that earnings this year are likely to exceed expectations as demand for its gas turbine and engineering services grows.
Sir Ian Wood, the founder, said: "Within our markets, oil and gas exploration and production spending continues to increase, particularly in international markets outside North America, and we continue to see an improving power market.
"In engineering and production facilities we began the year with good momentum, particularly in our engineering activities, and expect this to continue throughout the year.
"Within engineering we are active on a wide range of upstream, midstream and downstream projects. In production facilities, we are maintaining our market leading position in the North Sea, where we were recently reawarded a major onshore contract with Shell.
"We also continue to make good progress in developing our international production facilities presence."
He said growth in its well support services had been in line with expectations.
"We continue to see a good overall performance from our North American activities, despite relatively flat market conditions in the first quarter. International growth continues to be strong, and our investment programmes to increase capacity for international markets are progressing well."
The gas turbine service business had made a very strong start to the year and it was expected to continue strongly throughout this year and into next, he said.
"Overall, we continue to see healthy demand in the US and international markets for our gas turbine operations and repair services."
Sir Ian said the group was in no way complacent about its success. "It is currently a very strong market and the intention is not just to perform well but to use it to significantly improve and enhance the business and increase market share.
"We are not sitting back and saying this is nice. Allister (Langlands) and his guys are very aggressively planning the next three-year strategy."
Sir Ian stood down as chief executive at the beginning of the year and handed over to Langlands, deputy for the previous seven.
"I think the transition has gone extremely well. People were cynical about how far I could stand back, but Allister and I have been transitioning this for the last 18 months.
"I am looking carefully at board issues and I am travelling more, which is not something I necessarily wanted to do.
"But I am enjoying that because the business is running well and it is important to be out there. We have an extremely good board and I have set up a family charitable trust which is taking some time to get up and running.
"I am doing one or two other things but my heart is still very much in the Wood Group and I am enjoying watching Allister doing a super job."
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