New helicopter engine production centre taking shape

The project to set up the Petersburg Engines production centre for helicopter powerplants is under way in the settlement of Shuvalovo in St Petersburg. The completion date is set for May or June this year. The United Engine Corporation is erecting the new facility on an outlying industrial area belonging to its subsidiary Klimov plant.

Petersburg Engines will build TV3-117 and VK-2500 turboshaft engines. At present most of the Russian rotorcraft relying on these engine designs are fitted with examples manufactured by the Ukrainian engine maker Motor Sich. The new facility is expected to reach its annual design capacity of 450 units by the year 2015. Production should begin in 2012; only Russian-made components will be used.

The construction site measures 12 ha in area; the facility itself will sit on 50,000 m2 of land. Construction work, which started in May 2011, will cost a total of 3 billion rubles (about $100 million). Another 1.5 billion rubles will be spent on purchasing associated production equipment, the first examples of which are to be installed this summer. Overall, 6.2 billion rubles will go into Petersburg Engines. The project is being supported by the Russian state-owned bank Vneshekonombank, which last year extended a loan of 4.95 billion rubles to the United Engine Corporation.