CATHCART MSP James Dornan has met Clyde Union Pumps management and said he wants to make sure workers threatened with redundancy get the best possible package available.

Mr Dornan said Clyde Union executives told him there had been "very positive" discussions with the Unite union around the company's plan to cut around 90 posts from its Glasgow base.

Mr Dornan, who is a member of the SNP, indicated he hopes to meet with union officials soon to find out further details about the possible impacts on staff in his constituency.

The 62-year-old said: "I want to see the workers get the best deal they possibly can and find out what the future prospects are [at Clyde Union]."

Clyde Union has already stated the latest reduction in staff numbers is because of a downturn in oil and gas markets leading to delays in "large value" contracts.

Several oil and gas projects around the world have been put on hold because of the decline in Brent Crude prices in recent months.

A 30-day consultation has been started at Clyde Unions Cathcart plant with reductions expected across all areas of the business including on the manufacturing and engineering side.

It said it will be formally consulting with trade union and employee representatives regarding its plans and added: "Following this assessment period, all impacted employees will be notified and provided with outplacement support services."

The business is owned by United States based corporation SPX and makes a wide range of pumps for industries including oil and gas, nuclear, healthcare and food.

Its products are used in areas such as oil lines, high pressure water blasting, chemical processing and industrial mixing. They are designed to operate in hostile environments facing extremes of temperature, pressure and weather.

Earlier this year the Glasgow plant was named manufacturer of the year at the Annual Pump Industry Awards.

The latest cuts are the third since SPX bought the business from Jim McColl's Clyde Blowers Capital in a deal worth up to £750m in 2011.

At the point Mr McColl's company exited Clyde Union was employing close to half of its 2,000 staff in Glasgow.

The first large redundancy round came in 2012 with 80 people going with a further 160 being axed in June the following year.

Staff numbers in the factory had reduced to around 700 by 2013 and are believed to be lower than that now.

Clyde Blowers had paid £45m to Weir Group to save the Clyde Union business in 2007. Swiss firm Sulzer was in the mix to buy the pumps arm but wanted to close most of the long-standing Scottish manufacturing base.

The most recent annual accounts for Clyde Union available at Companies House cover the calendar year for 2013 and show it posted a pre-tax loss of £6.52m.

However that was an improvement on the £7.13m loss it had booked for 2012.

Revenue for 2013 was at £109.2m, which was down almost 14 per cent from the £126.7m in the prior year.