AT least 50 jobs will be created after a facility at the centre of a five-year saga over the scrapping of US Naval warships started work on one of its biggest contracts.

Work to dismantle BP’s 37,000-tonne North West Hutton oil platform has started at Able UK’s Teesside Environmental Reclamation and Recycling Centre (TERRC) facility.

A spokesman said the size of the project would create at least 50 jobs at the yard.

The facility at Seaton Port, in Graythorp, was at the centre of the so called Ghost Ships controversy, over the scrapping of US vessels.

Three huge barges have delivered modules from BP’s North West Hutton platform to TERRC, with another three scheduled to arrive in the near future.

North West Hutton is the first installation of its size to be decommissioned.

Able UK chairman Peter Stephenson said: “A project of this kind is a challenging and complex operation. We have worked closely with BP and Heerema over a number of years preparing for this.

“While this is a very big platform – and indeed the largest of its kind to be decommissioned so far in the North Sea – the work involved is the same as we have undertaken in dealing with many redundant offshore structures over the past 20 years.

“What it demonstrates is that TERRC is established as a world-class centre for the marine reclamation and recycling industry with enormous potential for the future.”

The first phase of TERRC’s involvement includes the arrival and processing of the topside structures, including the accommodation facilities, weighing about 20,000 tonnes.

The operation involved their removal from the platform by a heavy lift vessel and then placing them on the barges for the journey to TERRC.

The yard will receive the main steel jacket structure, the legs of the structure weighing about 17,000 tonnes, next summer.

Installed in 1981 and sited 130 kilometres north east of the Shetland Islands, the North West Hutton installation had accommodation and facilities for more than 200 personnel and a production capacity of 130,000 barrels of oil a day.

The field ceased production in January 2003 and in 2006 BP announced that the offshore removal and transportation would be undertaken by Heerema Marine Contractors, with Able UK undertaking the task of recycling and disposal of the structures at TERRC.

Able is spending £30m on developing its yard, which contains the largest dry dock in the world.

Because of legal and planning wrangles, four US Navy ships have been moored at its yard near Hartlepool since 2003.

A two-week public inquiry last year eventually saw Communities Secretary Hazel Blears back Able’s plans to expand its shipyard. In June, it was granted a waste management licence by the Environment Agency, which will allow it to keep, treat and dispose of controlled waste from decommissioned ships.

There are also three British vessels at the yard and it also expects the French former aircraft carrier the Clemenceau to arrive at the facility next month.

Able said that as many as 1,500 jobs could be created over two years.