Characteristic flows on signed graphs and short circuit covers

We generalise to signed graphs a classical result of Tutte [Canad. J. Math. 8 (1956), 13--28] stating that every integer flow can be expressed as a sum of characteristic flows of circuits. In our generalisation, the r\^ole of circuits is taken over by signed circuits of a signed graph which occur in two types -- either balanced circuits or pairs of disjoint unbalanced circuits connected with a path intersecting them only at its ends. As an application of this result we show that a signed graph $G$ admitting a nowhere-zero $k$-flow has a covering with signed circuits of total length at most $2(k-1)|E(G)|$.