Wärtsilä and Zhenjiang CME Co Ltd (CME) have today jointly signed a licence agreement for the manufacture and sale of Wärtsilä RT-flex low-speed marine diesel engines by CME in .
The agreement grants CME the right to manufacture all sizes of Wärtsilä RT-flex modern low-speed engine types at its new factory in . However, CME will focus on engines of 50 cm cylinder bore and smaller. The main attraction of the new licence agreement for CME is the Wärtsilä RT-flex engines with common-rail technology. This is the latest technology for low-speed diesel engines incorporating full electronic control of engine processes.
The new manufacturing capacity of CME will make a significant contribution to the delivery of Wärtsilä low-speed marine engines to the rapidly growing shipbuilding industry in .
The agreement was signed by Yang Jia Feng, General Manager of CME, and Martin Wernli, President of Wärtsilä in , during the Wärtsilä Chinese License Conference held in the Lijiang in northwestern province.
The new licensee is located at in up the Yangtze River from . CME, as a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), has been manufacturing four-stroke engines from another designer for many years, and is building a new factory on a 250,000 m2 site at for the manufacture of low-speed engines. The first engines are planned to be completed in the second half of 2009. The new factory will have an initial capacity to build engines with an aggregate output of about 300,000 bhp (220 MW), later increasing to one million brake horsepower (735 MW).
Support for the manufacture of Wärtsilä low-speed engines will be provided by Wärtsilä's company, which is the group's centre of excellence for the design, development, research, marketing, licensing, servicing and support of Wärtsilä low-speed engines.