Shares of Glasgow-based Aggreko, the world’s largest temporary power firm, rose 6% on Tuesday after it said its profit before tax edged 2% higher to £60 million even as its revenue slipped 10% to £768 million in the six months to June 30.

Interim dividend was maintained at 9.38p per share and Aggreko said it is on track to deliver full year earnings in line with market expectations.

Aggreko’s rental solutions business saw its underlying revenue rise 1%, mainly driven by North America where revenue was up 7% with strong growth in oil and gas.

Underlying revenue at its power solutions industrial business decreased 9%. Excluding the benefit of the South Korea Winter Olympics in the prior year, revenue in power solutions industrial increased 4%, with good growth in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, partially offset by a slowdown in Eurasia and Asia.

Underlying revenue in its power solutions utility business was down 7% “primarily due to 2018 off hires in Mozambique and Japan.”

Aggreko CEO Chris Weston said: “We have had a good start to the year and are on track to deliver full-year earnings in line with market expectations.

“Focus on delivery in our key sectors, combined with operational and cost efficiencies and the benefit from our investments in systems, has delivered improved profitability.

“We continue to innovate to meet our customers’ evolving needs through the energy transition, and during the period we launched the Y.Cube, our new modular and mobile energy storage system.

“Progress on receivables has also been encouraging, particularly in Africa, and this all underpins our confidence in achieving our mid-teens ROCE target in 2020.”