MOSCOW, January 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russian engineering firm Saturn is to deliver some 260 new gas turbine engines to the country's navy, its emergency situations ministry and its coastguard over the next 10 years, a company official said Monday.
Leonid Ivanov, Saturn's program director for the deal, told a news conference that the program would be one-third funded by the government and two-thirds by private investors. The government portion would amount to about $50 million in 2006.
The engines are designed for ships of between 40,000 deadweight tons 100,000 deadweight tons, and will cost $1-2 million per unit, he added.
Ivanov said the fourth-generation engines have clear advantages, including "higher speed characteristics and lower repair costs for ships." The company also planned eventually to produce the engines for non-military vessels, he said.
The Scientific-Industrial Association Saturn (NPO Saturn), based in Rybinsk in the central Russian Yaroslavl Region, is one of Russia's largest designers and producers of aircraft engines and gas-turbine generators.
