Inter RAO hopes to develop own gas turbine

ST. PETERSBURG. June 10 (Interfax) - Inter RAO aims to develop its own gas turbine in future, the Russian power company's CEO, Sergei Dregval told reporters on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"We have such a goal. In future, of course. When we talk about turbines, this isn't just one turbine, after all, it's a whole family of turbines of various classes. I think that the market is very large. If there are a number of domestic turbines, this will be better than one, one type and size, so we would like to participate," Dregval said when asked whether Inter RAO plans to develop turbines. This is a "lengthy" process, he added.

Asked if Inter RAO intends to do this on its own or with partners, he said the company is working out several options, but it "will probably be difficult to create [a turbine] alone."

Commenting on plans to for new acquisitions in the engineering sector, Dregval said Inter RAO is considering such a possibility and would like to expand its share of the power engineering market. The company is not holding any such negotiations at the moment, but it is looking at various assets, he said.

Inter RAO said in its annual report that it expects power engineering to become a key segment of its business in the near future. The company's engineering and construction divisions have an order book that exceeds 150 billion rubles, the report said.

Last October, Inter RAO announced the acquisition of Siemens Energy's 65% stake in Siemens Gas Turbine Technologies LLC, a joint venture with Power Machines, which retains 35%. In addition, Inter RAO's Dutch division, RAO Intertech B.V. acquired Siemens Energy's Voronezh plant, Voronezh Transformer LLC (formerly Siemens Transformers LLC).

At the beginning of this year, a division of Inter RAO completed the acquisition of the Ural Turbine Plant. In 2021, the group spent 46.9 billion rubles on the acquisition of 11 engineering companies and information technology company Sigma.