Cash blow for shipyard

New orders will not bring work until next year

The Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff has suffered a serious financial blow in its dispute over a £20m payment from an American oil company.

An arbitration hearing had decided H&W should receive the final payment on a drillship built for Global Marine.

But the High Court in London overturned that decision on Friday causing serious concern at the Belfast yard where the cash was being relied on to provide short-term working capital.

Harlands said it was disappointed at the decision and that it had been granted leave to appeal.

The yard recently paid off half its 1,200 strong workforce in a restructing plan forced on the company when it failed to win new orders.

Implications to be assessed

Since then the yard has won an order from the Ministry of Defence for two vessels.

Harlands' parent company, Fred Olsen Energy, said it had yet to fully assess the implications of Friday's judgement in the High Court.

Several weeks ago, the firm said it would continue to fund the shipyard until the end of January, by which time it was expected to break even.

The company also said it had still not finalised a contract to build four passenger vessels for a Scandinavian company.