Amec upbeat over growth after orders pick up

Oil services and engineering group Amec today said it was seeing an improvement in customer spending and expected its order pipeline to grow as the year goes on.

Amec, whose customers include BP, Royal Dutch Shell and EDF, said ahead of its annual general meeting today that its new order intake in the year to date was about 20% above last year.

The FTSE 100 company said its order book stood at £3.55 billion at the end of last month, compared with £3.17 billion at the end of December.

Amec, which is looking for acquisitions as in its drive to double earnings per share by 2015, said it remained on track to deliver its target of a margin of 8.5% on earnings before interest tax and amortisation this year.

"We continue to be well positioned on contracts at the early stage of the project cycle and are confident that this will support continued growth," said chief executive Samir Brikho.