Rolls-Royce, HAL sign MT30 agreement

Rolls-Royce and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have signed an agreement to facilitate the supply and support of the former’s MT30 gas turbine engine in India.

HAL said in a stock exchange filing on 4 May that the new memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishes “packing, installation, marketing, and services support” for the MT30 in the country.

Rolls-Royce and HAL have a long history of collaboration on aero-engines, but the MOU is the first that the two have signed to support the Indian naval-propulsion segment, HAL said. Work under the agreement will take place within HAL’s industrial and marine gas turbine (IMGT) division in Bangalore.

Commenting on the MOU, HAL’s chairman and managing director R Madhavan said that the two companies were also exploring the option of expanding co-operation to include the Rolls-Royce MT7 marine gas turbine engine for “hovercraft being planned by shipyards in India”.

The MOU was signed on the sidelines of talks between the governments of the UK and India, in which the two countries agreed to expand defence industrial and technology ties over the coming decade.

Part of this effort is expected to include collaboration in meeting future Indian Navy requirements for assets, including submarines, aircraft carriers, and other surface combatants.

To meet the Indian Navy’s aircraft carrier requirement, the UK is understood to be preparing an offer based on the UK Royal Navy’s BAE Systems Queen Elizabeth-class carriers, the second of which was commissioned in late 2019. The two vessels are powered by Rolls-Royce’s MT30 engine.

In 2019 BAE Systems told Janes that the company had started discussions with India about basing its future aircraft carrier on the Queen Elizabeth-class design.