Former aircraft carrier HMS Invincible is on the open market as the Ministry of Defence attempts to sell the decommissioned ship.

Listed as ‘In Stock’, her most likely buyer is a breakers’ yard.

Her engines have been removed and her generators and pumps are advertised as ‘generally unserviceable or not working’.

No bids have been received so far, the MoD said.

The asking price is undisclosed.

But experts estimate Invincible’s 10,000 tonnes of mild steel is worth more than £2m as scrap metal. There is interest from Leavesley International, which scrapped HMS Intrepid at its Liverpool ship recycling facility in 2008.

The firm’s operations manager, Stuart Halsey, who was shown around Invincible in Portsmouth on Wednesday, said: ‘I haven’t made any decision yet – I’m still pricing it up at the moment. There’s certainly a lot of ship there but anybody looking at doing the job needs to look at the associated costs involved.’

Invincible joined the navy in 1980 and served until 2005 when she was placed on ‘extended readiness’. Since March this year, she has been tied up alongside other decommissioned ships in Portsmouth. She was struck off the reserve list in September and is now offered for sale on the MoD’s ‘shopping’ website, e-disposals.com.

Bids must be tabled by January 5, 2011, the MoD said.

It is not the first time Invincible has been up for sale.

A deal was in place to sell her to the Australian navy for £175m in 1982. But the sale was halted after the Falklands War broke out. She went on to become the flagship of the fleet during the conflict.

Richard Scott, naval consultant for Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: ‘She certainly carved her name out in history in 1982. But every ship reaches the end of its career and she is at the end of hers.’