AN East Lancashire company is helping the US recover from Hurricane Katrina after making specialist cutting equipment to repair oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Allspeeds Ltd which employs around 50 workers at its base in Atlas Street, Clayton-le-Moors, has in record time, produced a cutter, capable of slicing through solid steel ropes in under two minutes.

The equipment is being used by subsea technology company Oceaneering, based in Houston, Texas, to cut through the ropes that tether oil platforms to the sea-bed.

It will enable repairs to be carried out on platforms damaged or destabilised by Hurricane Katrina, which wreaked havoc on America's Gulf Coast in August, costing the country's oil industry millions of pounds.

Allspeeds has produced the cutter the largest and most expensive part of its kind in four weeks, compared to the usual 12. It will use 200 tonnes of pressure to slice through the 190mm diameter solid steel ropes.

Allspeeds managing director Mike Hollyhead, said: "We were approached by Oceaneering the week before Christmas and they asked us if we could make this cutter they needed for the third week in January.

"I just laughed and gave them my answer that it was impossible and that we could have it ready for the second week in February. They said they would consider it and our engineers started drawing the sketches just in case they came back and said the second week in February would do.

"They came back to us and stressed the importance of having it ready in four weeks and asked what we could do. So we committed to it and we started work on it on January 4 and it was shipped off at the weekend.

"I'm very proud of the workforce for the extra work and effort they put in."

The company has been at the forefront of heavy engineering since being established in Clayton-le-Moors around 150 years ago.

In 1856 the company helped Brunel to launch the SS Great Eastern and was also behind the John Blake Hydram, originally used to power the fountains of the Taj Mahal in India.