OREANDA-NEWS. June 01, 2010. The largest railways rolling stock manufacturer in Russia, Transmashholidng (TMH), signed an agreement with the world leader in diesel and marine products manufacturing Wartsila Cooperation (Finland) to set a joint venture for the assembly and testing of multipurpose medium-speed diesel engines for railways, marine and stationary applications, as well as for manufacturing key components. Wartsila and TMH will also evaluate broadening the activities of the joint venture to include development and manufacturing of other diesel engine models in the future, reported the PR Department of TMH, reported the press-centre of TMH.

The agreement was signed in the Finnish city of Lappenranta by the General Director of TMH, Mr. Andrey Adreev, and the President of Wartsila, Mr. Ole Johansson, in the presence of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin and the Prime Minister of Finland, Mr. Matti Vanhanen.

A separate legal entity will be set for the joint project management, in which the partners will have equal share of ownership (per 50 %).

According to the reached agreement, a new diesel engine production site will be set on the spare surface of Penzadieselmash site, belonging to TMH. The capacity of this site will allow producing 350 complete diesel engines and diesel generators per year. The production is planned to be launched in 2012. The new production site will have modern equipment for assembly and testing of engines, machining lines for cylinder blocks, connecting rods and cylinder heads. It is also planned to install modern test cells for R&D. The modern project also envisages the localization of the components production in Russia.

The investments required for such production facilities accounts for 1,8 billion Rubles.

According to the agreement, the joint company products will be supplied not only on Russian, but also foreign markets. At the present, the partners are working on the development of modified diesel generators for railways application and locomotives with the view to supply them to Bryansk machinery building site (BMZ), one of TMH production sites.

The joint project for diesel engine production is not the first experience of the partnership between TMH and Wartsila. In 2007 BMZ signed a license agreement with the Finnish company on the production of low speed marine diesel engines.