Tognum, the specialist for propulsion and power solutions, and China North Industries Group Corporation (Norinco) held a ceremony in the Chinese city of Datong this past week to mark the opening of a joint undertaking involving the assembly of large, high-speed MTU diesel engines and emergency standby gensets.

Datong is located around 300 kilometers west of Beijing in Shanxi Province. Tognum subsidiary MTU Asia Pte. Ltd. and the Norinco Group Company Shanxi Diesel Engine Industry Corporation (SDEIC) are joint-venture partners. SDEIC has been manufacturing MTU engines under license since 1986. “This joint undertaking sees the consistent continuation of Tognum’s strategy of regional expansion. It provides ideal conditions for the creation of a strong position in the marketplace for emergency standby gensets in Chinese nuclear power plants and for engines for the Chinese Navy and Coast Guard,” said Tognum CEO Volker Heuer on the occasion of the opening ceremony.

In conjunction with the French nuclear power company Areva, MTU and Norinco have formed a consortium to equip Chinese nuclear power plants with emergency standby gensets which conform to the highest safety standards. Over the coming years, this will be a major growth market as the Chinese government has announced its intention to meet the country’s vast energy requirements by constructing more than one hundred nuclear power plants. The recent MTU China growth in the mining sector, when MTU delivered several Series 4000 engines to mine operators based in the North, will be well supported through the new state-of-the-art test bench and overhaul capacities in Datong.

The cooperation with Norinco is part of Tognum’s “Asia Strategy” which is aimed at significantly increasing the Group’s Asia revenues in coming years. The business expansion program in Asia also included the development of an engine production facility in Suzhou in 2006 and the relocation of the Asia headquarters to Shanghai in 2007.