Bonga bows out of the Tyne

The Bongo arrived on Tyneside in November last year

The giant oil and gas platform the Bonga has left the Tyne at the beginning of her voyage to Africa.

Thousands of people gathered at the mouth of the Tyne on Sunday morning to see the 300,000-tonne vessel pass between the piers.

The weather was finally declared suitable for her to leave at 0700 BST after weeks of false-starts.

She has been undergoing a refit at the Amec yard in Wallsend for the past year and is the largest vessel ever to sail up the River Tyne.

Derek Harwood, Amec's project director, said the work on the Bonga stands Tyneside in good stead for more contracts.

Bonga factfile The Bonga is the size of three football pitches It is the height of a 12-storey building It weighs the same as 30,000 double-decker buses The Bonga is named after a tiny African fish

He said: "Floating production systems are gaining in popularity for the deep offshore centres where oil is being found.

"This has been a good experience for Wallsend and Amec to have worked on this global project, the Bonga.

"Hopefully our experience and capacity and performance puts us in good stead for other future work."

About 22,000 tonnes of oil processing equipment has been fitted to the Bonga at the Wallsend yard.

The floating oil platform, which is capable of storing two million barrels of oil, will be connected to oil and gas wells on the bottom of the sea bed off Nigeria.