Vestas Shares Surge on Wind Power Orders

Denmark’s Vestas, the world’s No.1 wind turbine maker, said on Friday its order backlog ballooned, sending its shares up nearly 8 percent despite operating profit coming in slightly below expectations.

Vestas is riding a surge in demand for renewable energy sources amid soaring oil prices and increasing concerns about the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.
Vestas, which competes with Spain’s Gamesa, India’s Suzlon Energy and units of global power generation giants Siemens and General Electric, had an order backlog on June 30 of 7.2 billion euros (US$10.73 billion). This compared with 4.8 billion at the end of the first quarter and was 67 percent up on the figure at end-June last year.

“I think there are some very strong growth signals in these results, stronger than I can ever remember seeing in Vestas,” said Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen.

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