Bon voyage to yard jobs.

Byline: By Nick Whitten

A giant oil ship was leaving the Tyne today, taking with her hundreds of jobs.

More than 250 jobs have been axed in the past few days at McNulty Offshore in South Shields as work drew to a close on the upgrade of the Global Producer III.

And today the massive oil production vessel was due to slip slowly and quietly out of the Tyne to head north to work on the Dumbarton oilfields.

McNulty's has been working on the Global Producer contract since February with preparation and pre-fabrication work ready for her arrival in July.

The 217-metre long 53,552-tonne vessel has provided work for hundreds of people as she underwent an upgrade and refit.

Gradually, hundreds of workers right across the board ( platers, welders, riggers and pipefitters ( have been laid off as work dried up.

But yard bosses are vowing to keep shipbuilding on Tyneside alive.

Managing director Steve Keyworth said: "We peaked at 1,300 staff this year and feel we've made a real contribution to the community and the Tyne.

"We've been pushing around pounds 1m a week into the local economy, but it is the nature of the business that you create jobs and then redundancies.

"But we have other work at the moment. We have two jobs in Norway, some offshore work and a small job at the yard.

"We're also bidding for a number of other big jobs similar to this one (Global Producer III) that would start in early 2007. And we're confident we will get more work."

Mr Keyworth, 60, originally from Sheffield, started McNulty Offshore along with Peter and David McNulty in 1987 on the site of the former John Readhead & Sons shipyard.

Peter and David left McNultys in 1996, but the yard has grown to be the most successful floating oil conversion yard in Europe.

The Global Producer III is one of only 15 floating oil production vessels working the UK continental shelf.

She combines production, storage and offloading facilities and is particularly useful for getting oil in very deep water where it would be difficult to position a fixed oil platform.