Motor Sich may receive orders for AN-124 project

The Russian and Ukrainian governments signed a deal on Dec. 17 to provide state support for renewing production of the super-heavy cargo plane AN-124 with modernized D-18T engines. Earlier this month, the head of Ivchenko-Progrees design bureau, Ihor Kravchenko, declared his firm is working on the design of modernized D-18T-Series-3M that will be installed on new An-124s. The new engine, to be produced by Motor Sich (MSICH UK), will be ready for its first tests in 3Q14, according to Kravchenko.

Alexander Paraschiy: The resurrection of the AN-124 project will be a definite positive driver for Motor Sich, the monopoly supplier of engines for this plane. Yet the most encouraging thing for Motor-Sich that stems from the December 17 agreements is a tangible warming in Ukrainian-Russian relations. At least that will calm down the Russian rhetoric on “the need to substitute Ukrainian aerospace machinery” and dampen negative expectations on the future of Motor-Sich’s order book. As there are still a lot of uncertainties about the future of the AN-124 project, as well as another ambitious AN-70 project, we can only state that they will have a positive effect on the Motor Sich order book, but not in the coming two to three years.