Shares of Aberdeen-based engineering and oil services giant Wood plc rose on Wednesday after it published a strong pre-close trading statement for the six months to June 30.

Wood said its operating profit for the first half would be 25% higher than last year.

Wood shares rose more than 5% to around 439p to give the Aberdeen firm a current stock market value of around £2.8 billion.

Wood plc CEO Robin Watson said: “Our first half performance is ahead of prior year.

“We have delivered significant growth in operating profit together with EBITDA margin improvement.

“This has been led by our activities in energy markets in the eastern hemisphere and our environment and infrastructure operations in North America, together with the delivery of further cost synergies.

“Our expectation of revenue growth, strong earnings growth and cash generation in 2019 is unchanged.”