Ruslan Jets to Be Given New Wings
// It will take $6 billion
The aircraft industry
Volga-Dnepr Group, Ukrainian Antonov Design Bureau and Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP aircraft factory create a management company to carry out the project to recommence the production of An-124 (Ruslan) jets. It will organize the financing of the output of fifty new Ruslans at the cost of $6.4 billion.
An-124-100 (Ruslan) is the world’s largest cargo plain that can transport off-clearance loads (the carrying capacity is 120 tons) with no foreign analogues. The plane was developed by Antonov Design Bureau in late 70s. The total of 56 An-124 jets were produced then. Half of this number are now used for commercial purposes by Volga-Dnepr airlines, Polet airlines and Antonov Airlines. Ruslans have not been produced since 1994.
The proposal to resume the production of An-124-100 was put forward by Volga-Dnepr Group (its major shareholders are its management headed by Alexey Isaykin and Kaskol Group of Sergey Nedoroslev). The company chalks up 54 percent of the world market of off-clearance loads shipping and owns 9 Ruslans but their retirement is to begin in 2008. The idea won the support of officials. The governments of Russia and Ukraine created an inter-department council on the issue of the resumption of Ruslans’ output.
Alexey Isaykin reported to Kommersant yesterday that the council had endorsed the business plan of the project that includes two stages of the development up to 2025. The first stage presupposes that some 50 An-124M-150 planes (the version of An-124-100 with the carrying capacity increased by 30 metric tons and the crew reduced from six to four men) will be produced at Aviastar-SP factory in Ulyanovsk before 2008. The second stage includes the output of a fundamentally modernized version of An-124-300 with the extended distance of flight in with the elements of An-225 (Mria) planes used in the production. Mr. Isaykin says the cost of the project is estimated at $6.4 billion. $400 million of the sum is direct investment needed to develop and launch the productin of the new version of An-124, $5 billion is the investment in the serial output (one jet costs between $100 million an $200 million) and $1 billion is required for the second stage.
“A special management company for the project is going to be set up this year,” Mr. Isaykin says. “It will also act as a financial centre.” Alexey Isaykin did not comment on the shares in the corporate capital of different participants but mentioned that Volga-Dnepr, Aviastar-SP, Antonov Design Bureau, Motor Sich, Progress Design Bureau and a number of financial structures as co-founders.
Russian Sberbank, Vneshtorgbank, Natsionalny Reservny Bank and the International Finance Cooperation (the IFC) are considered by the industry’s experts potential participants of the project. “Generally speaking, we feel good about the project but we are not familiar yet with the business plan on the output of An-124,” Alexey Derkach, vice-president of Natsionalny Reservny Bank, told Kommersant. “The IFC is interested in the project,” the company’s major advisor on investment Algbeta Klein confirmed the information to Kommersant. “Ruslan is a unique plane, and we would like to support its development, though we are not ready to name the figures yet.”
Volga-Dnepr Group is going to buy only 15 new Ruslans. All the rest of the planes (excluding those bought by Polet airlines and Antonov Airlines) may be sold to foreign clients. Volga-Dnepr does not mind it, however. As Alexey Isaykin claims, the market of off-clearance and heavy loads may grow to $1.5 billion from current $500 million and reach the mark of $3 billion five years after.
Sergey Ryzhkin, Le Bourge; Nadezhda Pomerantseva
All the Article in Russian as of June 15, 2005
|
