AROUND 90 jobs are at risk at Clyde Union Pumps in Scotland in what will be the third round of major cuts since owner SPX took control almost four years ago.

Unite union officials cited a "lack of work" as the main reason behind the latest reduction in staff numbers with the company confirming the move was a result of a slower oil and gas market.

Many oil and gas projects have been delayed indefinitely because of the lower price of Brent crude in recent months.

It is believed all functions across Clyde Union are affected by the cuts.

The Unite union confirmed its shop stewards at the Cathcart site have been meeting with management and a formal 30-day consultation has started.

Kenny Jordan, regional officer from Unite, confirmed a dwindling workload was the main reason for the cuts.

He said: "There is a good relationship between our shop stewards and the management in there and we would hope they would work their way through it to get the best possible outcome.

"Our view would be to avoid compulsory redundancy and I'm sure that is what our stewards will be taking to management."

Clyde Union said it was trying to make sure skills were retained and as many jobs as possible protected but added: "Due to a challenging business environment and current market conditions we are experiencing delayed decisions to proceed with large value projects particularly in the oil and gas sector .

"As a result our Clyde Union facility in Glasgow needs to adjust and "right size" its business whilst maintaining its cross functional skills to support its current product portfolio, backlog and growth market areas."

The cuts come less than two months after the Glasgow plant was named manufacturer of the year at the Annual Pump Industry Awards.

Following that award in March Gary Walker, head of engineering at the Cathcart facility, said it was a "great achievement".

Along with making pumps for numerous industries around the globe the company also does servicing, repairs, spare parts and upgrading.

SPX bought the business from Jim McColl's Clyde Blowers Capital in a deal worth an initial £500 million during 2011.

At that point Clyde Union employed 2,000 people around the world, with eight manufacturing plants and 25 service centres.

In 2012 around 80 people were made redundant at Cathcart with managers, technicians, clerical staff and manual operators among those affected.

Then in June 2013 a further 160 roles, mainly in white-collar and administration functions, were cut.

The Glasgow plant had employed around 960 people when Mr McColl's group sold it but numbers had reduced to around 700 by 2013.

Clyde Blowers had paid £45m to Weir Group in 2007 as it stepped in to save the Clyde Union business.

Swiss firm Sulzer had been in the running to buy the pumps business but had proposed to close much of the long-standing Scottish manufacturing operation.

At the time of the sale to SPX Mr McColl, who worked at Weir Pumps as a teenage apprentice, was confident ClydeUnion would continue to grow and said he would not have agreed to the sale without "personal guarantees" the new owner was committed to growing the operation in Scotland.

SPX, which has its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, has recently announced plans to split into two.

That will involve spinning off its flow products division, to be called SPX Flow, and listing it on the New York Stock Exchange.

The flow division includes the ClydeUnion Pumps business.

The most recent annual accounts for ClydeUnion, which cover the calendar year for 2013, show it recorded a pre-tax loss of £6.52m.

That was a slight improvement on the £7.13m loss it had posted for 2012.

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

In those 2013 accounts the directors had indicated the restructuring which took place that year had helped to stabilise the business.