40 jobs to go as British Engines Ltd cuts back

Oct 1 2009 By Sam Wood, The Journal

MORE engineering jobs are to go in the North East as a company which produces specialised equipment for the offshore oil industry announced redundancies.

British Engines Ltd (BEL), based in St Peter’s Basin, Newcastle, will cut up to 40 posts, more than 10% of its workforce.

The jobs, to be lost in the BEL Valves division, include clerical, management, skilled and semi skilled technical jobs.

A worker at the plant, which employs 360 people, spoke to The Journal after the job cuts were announced.

The man, who did not want to be named, said: "It is another blow to engineering in the North East. There will be nothing left soon. We were all taken into a meeting and told what was happening, it was very sombre, there is lots of doom and gloom around. There are some highly skilled people here, it will be a tragedy if these skills are lost to the region.

"We knew something like this was coming though, there has been less and less work. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that I’m not one of the ones to go."

BEL, which was founded in 1992 in Newcastle, has several divisions in Walker and the St Peter’s Basin area.

It is understood the company is looking for voluntary redundancies at first before moving on to compulsory cuts.

Bill Green, North East regional officer for Unite, which represents 200 workers at the plant, confirmed the job losses. He said work had gone in to trying to save as many jobs as possible.

"We have been working with the company since last October. The company has been in trouble for a while. It has been affected by the global down turn as it provides valves and other specialised equipment to the offshore oil processing and refining industry," he said.

"Any big projects which have been planned have been delayed by months or shelved and that has had a knock on effect on all the companies which supply them. It is obviously a blow, there are some very skilled people who will be out of a job.

"Other measures have been tried to avoid job losses such as changing work patterns to see if the company could ride out the storm.

"But they haven’t worked and these redundancies have unfortunately been announced as the management feel they have no alternative."

No one from British Engines Ltd was available for comment about the job losses last night.