County Durham based energy and mineral experts Hargreaves Services revealed another impressive year of trading today, which will also see it create up to 300 new jobs.

The Esh Winning firm, which supplies coal to UK power stations, runs a haulage operation and has a growing renewable energy division, reported that its profit before tax had leapt more than 20 per cent to £36.9m in the 12 months to May, up from £30.7m last year.

It included an increase of more than 100 per cent in operating profit from its European operations to £9.9m.

The firm which employs around 900 of its 3,500 staff in the region, has taken on around 500 extra workers in the past year and is looking to increase that by a further 300 before May, with some of those positions in the North-East.