General Electric wants to produce offshore drilling equipment in Romania

US group General Electric (GE) is currently evaluating the possibility of expanding the production at its Ploiesti-based oil equipment factory to include offshore drilling equipment. GE bought the Ploiesti factory in 2013 from the US-based company Lufkin. "Ee evaluate the possibility of extending the production at the Lufkin plant to include offshore equipment, considering, for example, developments in the Black Sea," said in a statement Cristian Colteanu, president and CEO of GE for Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova. In addition, GE's aircraft component production unit in Bucharest will deliver parts for the powerful new GEnx jet engine and will provide 50% of the global demand for parts necessary to produce the combustors for new LEAP aircraft engines by 2016, Colteanu added. These engines will power aircraft for Boeing, Airbus and COMAC. The Lufkin factory in Ploiesti has almost 400 employees and 90% of the production is exported. GE also has a factory for aircraft engine components in Bucharest. With its two Romania factories, GE makes annual exports of over US 70 million (EUR 58.8 million). More about its plans, here.

With operations in Romania since 1984, GE has some 1,000 employees in the country.

American oil pump maker Lufkin to export most of the production from recently opened Romanian factory Diana Mesesan, diana@romania-insider.com