INTERVIEW: Siemens wants investment contract on 100% urbine localization

YEKATERINBURG, Jul 10 (PRIME) -- German industrial giant Siemens has submitted an official request to Russia's Industry and Trade Ministry to sign a special investment contract on 100% domestic production of heavy-capacity gas turbines by the middle of 2023, President of Siemens Russia Alexander Liberov said in an interview with PRIME on Wednesday.

"We are still interested in localization of production in Russia. On July 2, we sent an official request for a special investment contract. The terms were preliminarily discussed so we hope for a positive decision… We guarantee a 100% localization… until the middle of 2023," he said.

Liberov also said that the turbines will be produced by a joint venture between Siemens and power engineering company Power Machines of businessman Alexei Mordashov.

The popular SGT5-2000E turbine needed for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities will be the first choice for local production, the executive said and added that his company is in talks on turbine shipments to Obsky LNG plant of independent gas producer Novatek, gas giant Gazprom's gas complex in Ust-Luga, and a 250 megawatt (MW) thermal power plant of petrochemical company Kazanorgsintez.

Siemens has already agreed with Russian companies on deliveries of components for the turbines and transferred corresponding technical documents to them.

Russia does not have mass production of gas turbines with capacities of above 110 megawatts (MW) and has to rely on imports as this equipment is the major part of combined-circle thermal power plants.

Liberov also said that a debut batch of compressor equipment for Novatek's Arctic LNG-2 facility will be delivered in May 2020.

The U.S. $27 billion Arctic LNG-2 plant will be launched in 2022–2025 and fields of the Gydan Peninsula in the north of West Siberia will become its resource base. The facility is expected to produce 19.8 million tonnes of LNG per year.

End