Further job fears at Belfast yard

Critical time for Harland and Wolff

Ailing Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff is bracing itself for another major round of redundancies.

It is understood several hundred job losses will be announced in the next few days as a result of a cash crisis at the yard which has no significant work on its order books.

The news comes just two months after 280 redundancy notices were issued because of the unhealthy state of the order book.

The shipyard has been in serious difficulties for months, but has now found itself in a critical condition.

The crisis was discussed on Monday night by union officials and the company's major shareholder, Norwegian shipping magnate Fred Olsen.

Ready for delivery

But arbitration hearings could have a bearing on the yard's future.

A court decision ten days ago allowed its US customer Global Marine, which was at the centre of a dispute with the yard, to take away a drill ship without making a final payment of £23m.

H&W had said that the vessel was ready for delivery, but Global Marine refused to accept the ship and said it was not completed to their satisfaction.

The two companies are also involved in an ongoing row over a contract dispute involving nearly £100m.

The dispute is to be settled by arbitration in a few weeks, but in the meantime the yard is simply running out of money.

It has workforce of about 1,250, a wage bill of around £2.5m a month, and recently has been kept afloat by its parent company Olsen Energy.

Finalise new order

Olsen Energy is having a board meeting in a few days time to decide what to do, but significant cutbacks are expected.

The shipyard is working to finalise a big new order, but that has been slow to materialise and is putting increasing pressure on a company that is literally fighting for survival.

In July the yard's parent company announced record losses of about £8m for the second quarter of the year, most of which it attributed to the shipyard.

Fred Olsen has said the loss reflected redundancy costs as well as a shortage of work.

Harland and Wolff has been facing financial difficulty and an empty order book for some time, but won a £300m order for four roll-on-roll-off passenger vessels in May.

Although H&W also secured a letter of intent for building two luxury liners, it said it had no work to offer the men being laid off until the new contracts started.