Oil industry contractors Aker Solutions and Technip posted above-forecast second-quarter earnings and said their markets would stay strong as the world seeks to quench its thirst for oil and gas, lifting the shares.

French Technip posted a 19 per cent rise in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to 195 million euros ($304.6 million) and revised up its 2008 operating margin outlook to around 8 from 7.6 per cent.
Norwegian Aker Solutions reported an EBITDA of 1.13 billion crowns ($218.8 million) for April-June, up 13 per cent year-on-year and maintained its 2008-2010 guidance.
“Very strong results for both companies and good news on their outlooks,” ABN Amro analyst Thomas Deitz said.
“We are in the midst of an energy and infrastructure super-cycle, especially in oil and gas where we have seen significant underinvestment,” he added.
Surging oil and gas prices have spurred demand and benefited companies providing oilfield services, including engineering and construction companies such as Aker Solutions and Technip.
A step change in long-term oil price expectations during the second quarter has made investors increasingly bullish on the ability of the oilfield services sector to sustain its five-year upswing into the next decade.
But valuations have fallen sharply from late-May highs due to global stock market weakness and concerns about rising costs and project delays eroding margins.
Aker Solutions said its market fundamentals were driven by an expected 2 per cent annual rise in global oil production until around 2015, and 7 per cent growth in mid- and deep-water production required to cover this additional demand.
It said the world’s fleet of oil and gas rigs was fully utilised and not enough new rigs are being built to increase deepwater production, boding well for the market.
“The high level of investment in the oil, gas and process industries is expected to continue for the next years due to ... the gap between supply and demand, high oil prices and exploration moving to deeper and harsher waters,” Aker said.
Technip said its order backlog fell to 8.1 billion euros at end-June from 9.67 billion euros at the same time last year. 
“There may be some relief that Technip posted no writedowns this quarter, and that the results were clean,” said Citigroup analyst David Thomas.