Engineering group Hunting (LSE:HTG) has provided a year-end trading update for 2023, with the company’s revenue expected to rise above $925 million.
Meanwhile, Hunting said it expects its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to be in the range of $96-$100m.
Hunting said its total sales order book now stands at approximately $575m, up 12% from the end of Q3 2023 and up 21% from the 2022 year-end.
The company said its 2024 EBITDA expectations are unchanged at approximately $125-$135m, driven by its “strong order book”.
Hunting will announce its 2023 final results on February 29.
Hunting chief executive Jim Johnson said the company had delivered another year of strong revenue growth, with EBITDA nearly doubling compared to 2022 as industry activity accelerated during the year.
“The Group’s diverse product lines, including energy-related and non-oil and gas have enabled Hunting to deliver solid top line growth in the year, with sales into South America being strong as drilling in Guyana and Brazil increased, while activity across Asia Pacific accelerated as drilling momentum in India and the Middle East improved,” Mr Johnson said.
“2024 will see another year of EBITDA growth underpinned by our strong sales order book, which is now up 21% compared to a year ago.”
Hunting 2023 sales performance
Hunting said sales within its OCTG (oil country tubular goods) piping products are likely to have increased by close to 53% in 2023 compared to the $259m reported in 2022, led by “strong activity” in Asia Pacific and South America and “good progress” in North America.
The company’s subsea product lines have reported strong year-on-year growth, Hunting said, with revenue up close to 40% in 2023 from $69m in 2022.
The group’s advanced manufacturing businesses also report strong growth in the year, with revenue up by approximately 45% in 2023 from $75m in 2022.
Other manufacturing, which includes Hunting’s well testing and trenchless businesses, has delivered revenue growth of around 5% in the year, up from $71m in 2022.
Meanwhile, Hunting’s perforating systems business reported a 3-4% decrease in revenue compared to 2022, which the company said was in part due to the approximately 20% decline in the North American rig count reported in the year.
In total, Hunting said the overall share of non-oil and gas revenue within the business is expected to increase to around 8% of total revenue, up from 6.5% in 2022.
Hunting board appointments
In addition to its end-of-year trading update, Hunting also announced two changes to its board.
Stuart Brightman will become non-executive chair of the company, taking over from the retiring John Glick.
Meanwhile, Margaret Atmos joins the board as a new independent, non-executive director after spending the majority of her career at Rolls Royce.
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