Belfast's troubled Harland and Wolff shipyard is in discussions with ministers in Northern Ireland over a plan to try and save the yard from closure, it was confirmed tonight.
The yard has no orders beyond work currently being carried out for the British Ministry of Defence and a growing cash crisis.
Ministers in the Northern Ireland administration are currently studying a survival business plan draw up by the yard's management, the company said tonight.
If the restructuring plan is not implemented the yard faces almost certain closure.
Even if the ministers - Enterprise Minister Sir Reg Empey and Regional Development Minister Mr Peter Robinson - agree, some 140 jobs are likely to be lost.
Steel fabrication work on the two roll-on, roll-off ferries being built for the defence ministry is coming to an end in mid-summer and without fresh work those workers will not be needed. The vessels are due for delivery late this year and in the first quarter of next year.
As things stand at present they have no work beyond then. The yard has been to the brink many times, but is now in its most dire state.
The business plan would see Harland and Wolff moving away from traditional steel fabrication work and concentrating on the high added value elements of fitting out vessels, working on oil rigs and getting into the growing renewable energy market of wind farms - they have already built turbines for wind power.
But the whole plan hangs on the ministers changing the terms of the lease on some 70 acres of land held by the yard to enable it to be used for purposes other than shipbuilding.
If they agree, the yard would be able to raise money from other businesses moving onto the land which, under the business plan, would not be needed by the slimmed-down shipyard.
A spokesman for Harland and Wolff said tonight: "This is the only way we can see the funds being available in the timeframe we need it."
Other means of raising the estimated £20 million needed to implement the business plan are winning new orders or swiftly getting around £200 million it is demanding from a US oil firm for which it built two highly sophisticated oil drill ships in the late 1990's.
The yard spokesman said neither of the other options were thought likely in the time they need for survival.
The yard is demanding the £200 million from the US company to cover overrun costs it says were incurred through specification changes ordered by the purchaser during construction.
The US company is refusing to pay up and insisting on fighting through arbitration and the courts - and the 18 months to two years that will take is too long to save the yard.