John Wood Group, the Aberdeen-based global engineering and consulting giant, published a trading update for the year ended December 31, 2023, showing FY23 revenue of around $6 billion, up 9% “with good growth across all business units.”

Wood said FY23 adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was slightly ahead of guidance at $420 million to $425 million, up 9%.

The Aberdeen group reported an order book of around $6.1 billion, up 4% on a comparable basis.

Wood operates in 60 countries, employing around 35,000 people.

Wood said it has started the sales process for its 51% stake in the EthosEnergy turbines services joint venture.

The group’s net debt excluding leases at December 31 was $680 million “including exceptional cash outflows in line with our guidance of c.$140 million and an FX impact of c.$15 million.”

Wood said: “Net debt was slightly above our expectations due to FX and the timing of customer receipts in December, as flagged in our Q3 trading update.”

The group’s Projects business saw strong revenue growth of 10% to $2.5 billion, with very strong growth across oil, gas and chemicals.

Its Operations business saw like-for-like revenue growth of around 7% to c$2.5 billion, reflecting higher activity levels across the business, particularly in Europe and the Middle East.

Wood’s Consulting unit saw strong revenue growth of 13% to $700 million with continued growth in “solutions across energy security, energy transition and digital consulting.”

Wood CEO Ken Gilmartin said: “We are now one year into our strategic growth journey and our results continue to show clear progress.

“We have delivered strong revenue and EBITDA growth, improved our underlying cash generation, grown our order book, and continue to see an acceleration in the proportion of sustainable solutions within our pipeline.

“We are confident that our actions, business model and strategy are delivering and look forward to giving a further update in March.”