ST. JOHN'S - A $400,000 federal training program to help 110 Newfoundland welders secure a job on the Hibernia oil development has one hitch - only 30 will get work.

"As far as I'm concerned, we're in school under false pretenses," said Gerard Roche, a welder from Freshwater, Nfld., who joined the eight-week upgrading course.

Welders -who took the program were told they had a "99.9 per cent, chance, upon graduation, of landing work assembling the topside modules of Hibernia's gravity-based structure at Bull Arm

'We were given guarantees,' said Mr. Roche, 39. 'We ended up getting the short end of the stick.'

He was among those notified this week, as the course ended, that he will not find a job on the $6-billion offshore oil project.

Hibernia officials say there are few guarantees in life, especially when it comes to a job on the giant energy development, the biggest job-creating project in Newfoundland's dismal economy.

The welding schedule for the topside modules - drilling and production platforms - was revised last month, resulting in fewer welders working for longer periods.

"As it turned out, there were more trained for this particular course than we actually need," Hi-

bernia spokeswoman Andrea Marshall said.

Only about 70 of the 110 welders who started the program completed it. The rest either dropped out or got a job.

About 5,000 people are working on the Hibernia platform at the construction site west of St. John's. Plans call for the platform to be towed next year into the North Atlantic, about 300 kilometres east of Newfoundland.

The Hibernia field is to begin producing about 600 million barrels of oil a year by 1997.

Rick Fifield, St. John's spokesman for the federal Human Resources Department, which paid for the welding course, said graduates were expected to get work with Hibernia. "The agreement we had is that anybody who's trained is being trained for a known job opportunity," said Mr. Fifield, who plans to, meet soon with Hibernia officials to discuss the situation.

But he pointed out that the department has trained thousands for Hibernia work, and about 80 per cent have been hired.

Mr. Roche said many welders will have trouble qualifying for unemployment insurance benefits because they took the training course. Some even gave up work to do so, said Nick Careen, Tory member of the legislature for Placentia.