General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) has announced plans to break ground on a $100 million jet-engine plant in Lafayette, Ind., later this year. The plant will assemble the LEAP engine, which GE produces along with partner Safran. That new engine will be used by Airbus and Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) passenger jets for airlines worldwide.
David Joyce, president of GE Aviation, said in a statement, “Beginning in 2015, the LEAP engine will experience a dramatic production ramp-up for the remainder of the decade.”
The Lafayette plant is expected to begin production in 2016 and to employ more than 200 people within about five years. It will be the seventh new GE Aviation facility in the United States in the past seven years.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence said:
Indiana is a manufacturing state, with decades of experience in building the items that power our world. But we are also a state of innovation, developing the technologies of tomorrow. GE Aviation’s plans in Indiana fuse the two.
The state of Indiana, the city of Lafayette and Tippecanoe County provided incentives to bring the plant home. GE Aviation also has longstanding ties with nearby Purdue University.
GE Aviation says that it expects to invest more than $3.5 billion in plant and equipment at its sites worldwide between 2013 and 2017, with most of that investment in the United States. The LEAP engine, launched in 2008, will also be built in an existing engine assembly plant in Durham, N.C.
GE shares were up fractionally in mid-day trading Wednesday to $25.85, in a 52-week range of $21.11 to $28.09.
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