The news emerged as Peter Mandelson, the former Cabinet minister, launched a campaign backed by Greenpeace and the GMB union for a coherent British policy on how to dispose of old ships.

The campaign looks likely to result in a new national strategy, backed by government, for the shipbreaking industry later this year.

Able UK won a £10.6m deal last year to dismantle 13 ships for the US Maritime administration. However, the contract was suspended in November after challenges from environmental campaigners led by Friends of the Earth.

Peter Stephenson, the managing director of Able UK, said 20 to 30 companies in Europe and the Far East had since offered to carry out the work.

He had turned them all down: "These companies wanted to sell them to India, Turkey and China. But it goes against our policy and against the contract."

Mr Stephenson said he was was now looking at two yards outside the UK where Able could potentially carry out some of the work. He said: "We have lost confidence [in the British system]. We are looking at two facilities outside Britain. We have got to do a contingency plan. I am making sure that we are not caught again."

Able UK is now footing a £300,000-a-week bill to maintain four ships that have already arrived at its Hartlepool yard.

Mr Stephenson said that a planning application to allow the work to be carried out had to wait until an environmental assessment was filed. This means that work will not be able to start on the four vessels before September - two months later than hoped. The other nine ships will not now arrive until next year - six months later than planned.

Able employs 50 staff at the yard - it had hoped to have 200 working on the ships. Mr Stephenson said their prospects were looking "desperate".

He said: "We are trying to pick up some alternative work but it is proving very hard. We are trying to balance our books."

Mr Mandelson, MP for Hartlepool, yesterday said that government-owned ships should be "entirely recycled in the EU". He said: "We have a moral obligation to find a properly controlled and regulated alternative for breaking up these ships."

Ministers should also encourage other British ship owners to break up their ships in European Union countries. He pointed to two Royal Navy vessels that were sold to a German contractor three years ago. They were intended to be broken up in Turkey but ended up being scrapped on an Indian beach.

He said: "The British government has to be extremely alert to what happens to these ships once they leave their custody and their responsibility. They have got to introduce very stringent conditions about how they are disposed of."

The GMB said that it would not be advocating the campaign if it felt there was a safety risk to its members.

A spokesman for the Department of Environment said: "We can see a need for a national strategy to deal with the scrapping of ships. One is being worked on and later in the year will be announced."