BOSSES at the Clyde warship yards are bidding to clinch a £2billion deal which would help secure more than 2000 jobs.

The Saudia Arabian government is negotiating to buy up to three Clyde-built Type 45 destroyers - the most advanced in the world.

The Glasgow yards and VT's Portsmouth facility already have orders worth more than £6bn for six Type 45s for the Royal Navy. The £650million HMS Daring was launched last year and another five Type 45s are planned.

If the government talks produce a sale, the deal would give Saudia Arabia the most powerful surface naval force in the Persian Gulf.

The contracts would also support 650 jobs at VT's Portsmouth facility.

There were fears that an option to build two more Type 45s was to be scrapped because the MoD was facing a cash crisis over a number of multi-billion pound projects over the next decade.

These include bills for a flotilla of Astute-class nuclear attack submarines, two 60,000-tone aircraft carriers and Nimrod MR4 surveillance aircraft.

A naval source said: "If even two of the new destroyers are sold to the Saudis, it will pull both BAE and the MoD out of a cash-flow hole.

"It would maintain a constant workload for the UK yards, boost the order book and spin out the MoD's payment plan for other items."

The Royal Navy originally planned to order 12 Type 45s, but was forced to scale back due to budget cuts.