Trading Update

25 June 2015

Trading update for the six months to June 2015

John Wood Group PLC (“Wood Group” or “the Group”), issues the following pre-close trading update for the six months to 30 June 2015. Results for the first half will be released on 18 August 2015.

Trading performance

Financial performance in the first half of 2015 will demonstrate the relative resilience and flexibility of our asset-light, predominantly reimbursable model, but will be down on the first half of 2014 reflecting challenging conditions in oil and gas markets. To help offset the impact of lower activity and pricing pressure, we are delivering savings significantly in excess of original targets from our cost reduction initiatives, and continue to focus on utilisation. We remain confident that our market leading businesses and breadth of capability position us well to deliver for our customers. There is no change to overall guidance and we continue to anticipate that full year EBITA will be broadly in line with analyst consensus.1

Engineering

Upstream activity levels remain subdued, however we have seen a good contribution from larger detailed engineering projects including Det Norske’s Ivar Aasen in the Norwegian North Sea and Hess Stampede in the Gulf of Mexico. In the second quarter, we started FEED work on our six year Offshore Maintain Potential contract with Saudi Aramco awarded in March. The current high volume of pre-FEED, FEED and concept work includes a number of leading global offshore developments and is a positive indicator of future activity levels, although the timing of sanction of detailed engineering scopes remains uncertain.

Our subsea business has been active on larger projects for BP in the Caspian and the North Sea, Zadco in Abu Dhabi, Tullow in Ghana and Chevron in Australia. However, activity levels have reduced and we are seeing fewer large subsea capex projects coming to market. Recent new awards include FEED for Woodside in Australia and for Talisman in Vietnam and a five year maintenance contract for subsea well control as part of a joint industry project.

Our onshore pipelines business is performing robustly in the US where customers are looking to improve transportation to downstream facilities, and is delivering engineering and construction management services for customers including Energy Transfer Company and Dow.

Our downstream, process and industrial activities are also performing well, in part due to the impact of lower feedstock prices. Following the successful completion of early stage engineering on a refinery modification project for Flint Hills Resources in the Eagle Ford region, we have recently been awarded the detailed engineering, procurement and construction support scope.

PSN

In the Americas, the US onshore market continues to be impacted by reduced demand and pricing pressure in our capex related activities including fabrication and site preparation and, to a lesser extent, midstream construction services. Our ongoing opex focused activity, which accounts for over half our onshore work, has also experienced pricing pressure and some lower demand but has been less affected. In May, our Trinidad joint venture was awarded a new five year $250 million contract to provide engineering, procurement and construction services to BP’s offshore facilities.

In the North Sea, we are maintaining our leading position in maintenance and brownfield engineering work and have good visibility under longer term contracts. We are seeing the impact of reduced project and non-essential maintenance work, though continue to work alongside customers towards efficiency improvement. Following new five year awards from Total and Enquest, we secured a new $250 million contract with Antin Infrastructure Partners for the operatorship of the CATS terminal and pipeline in the North Sea. The contract was secured in collaboration with Wood Group Kenny, leveraging our leading expertise in pipeline operations and extending our duty holder capability into new markets.

In our international business, longer term contracts in Australia and Asia Pacific are progressing and we see a number of near term opportunities for growth in the Middle East and Africa.

In Turbine JVs, underlying performance is in line with 2014 and our primary focus continues on actions to improve performance in EthosEnergy including capital efficiency and cost reduction initiatives.

Financing and dividend

Our strong balance sheet provides security and flexibility, and net debt is slightly below the lower end of our preferred Net Debt: EBITDA range of 0.5 times to 1.5 times. Our intention remains to increase the dividend per share by a double digit percentage from 2015 for the medium term.

Summary

Financial performance in the first half of 2015 will demonstrate the relative resilience and flexibility of our asset-light predominantly reimbursable model, but will be down on the first half of 2014 reflecting challenging market conditions. To help offset the impact of lower activity and pricing pressure, we are delivering savings significantly in excess of original targets from our cost reduction initiatives, and continue to focus on utilisation. There is no change to overall guidance and we continue to anticipate that full year EBITA will be broadly in line with analyst consensus.1

Conference Call

A telephone conference call for analysts will be held at 8am today; participant dial-in details below:

UK: 01296 480 180

International: [phone]

Passcode: 842 406#

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Notes to Editors:

Wood Group is an international energy services company with over $7bn sales. The Group is built on our Core Values and has two reporting segments – Wood Group Engineering and Wood Group PSN - providing a range of engineering, production support and turbine services to the oil & gas, and power sectors.  www.woodgroup.com

Note 1 – Company compiled publicly available consensus EBITA on a proportionally consolidated basis is $469m and AEPS is 85.5c, last updated on 1st June 2015.
http://www.woodgroup.com/investors/analyst-consensus/pages/default.aspx

Enquiries:

Wood Group
Andrew Rose                                           01224 851 000
Laura McCracken
Carolyn Smith

Brunswick
Patrick Handley                                       020 7404 5959
Charles Pemberton