Hunting's profit driven by Gulf of Mexico drilling activity

(Adds analyst comment, estimates, share movement)

Aug 28 (Reuters) - Energy services firm Hunting Plc (LSE: HTG.L - news) shrugged off a poor start to the year and posted a 2.6 percent increase in first-half pretax profit, helped by strong demand in the Gulf of Mexico.

Underlying pretax profit rose to $93.9 million for the six months ended June 30, from $91.5 million a year earlier.

Hunting, which provides equipment and services to help extract oil and gas, said revenue rose 4.8 percent to $687.5 million.

Analysts on average had expected a pretax profit of $88.9 million on revenue of $664.5 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"We leave our forecasts unchanged pro-tem, but, if its Q2 momentum continues into H2, then we could see modest upgrades in due course," brokerage Investec (LSE: INVP.L - news) said in a note.

Analysts on average expect full-year pretax profit of $203.8 million on revenue of $1.43 billion.

Hunting had warned on first-quarter performance being hurt by bad weather and project delays in April, but had said it was comfortable with its outlook for the year.

Hunting, which began as a ship-owning firm started by Charles Hunting in 1874, raised its interim dividend by 5.2 percent to 8.1 cents.

Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) in the company rose 2.5 percent to 917 pence in early trade on Thursday on the London Stock Exchange (Other OTC: LDNXF - news) . (Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)