Wood Group bounced back from its recent weakness yesterday as it unveiled an upbeat trading statement and said it expected growth to continue.

Wood Group bounced back from its recent weakness yesterday as it unveiled an upbeat trading statement and said it expected growth to continue.

Wood said its customers were making major development decisions on the basis of longer-term oil price assessments and were committed to long-term investment programmes.

The shares rose 10% to 277.75p as the Aberdeen-based group said demand for its ser-vices since the end of June had remained high, despite significant volatility in financial, commodity and currency markets.

It said its overall funding position was good, with bank facilities of about $1bn (£578m) committed to July 2010.

"We anticipate a good working capital performance in the second half, which will drive strong operating cashflow for the year," the group said.

Analysts said the statement had boosted investor faith in the oil services sector, which had flagged in the face of declining oil prices and global economic concerns.

Andrew Whittock at Oriel Securities said it "gave some confidence that the 12-month outlook for oil service shares is still quite attractive".

Paul Singer, equity analyst at Barclays Wealth, said Wood was its preferred major UK oil services stock.