MAN Diesel has received an order for three 18V28/32S engines from the Egyptian Marketing Consultants Group. The engines will power three electricity plants in the south of the country, in the desert near the town of Toshka, as part of a large agricultural project.

The four-stroke engines will play a vital role in a Government-sponsored project to irrigate the desert and create farmland by pumping freshwater from aquifers deep beneath the surface. The engines will operate on diesel oil and are due for delivery in August, September and October 2010.

The agricultural project is called the East Owainat Project and is a so-called national megaproject for the purpose of reclaiming 500,000 feddans (over half a million acres) from the Sahara desert. The MAN Diesel engines will be used to extract water from wells drilled into the aquifer through powering pivotal irrigation systems.

The 18V28/32S engine is a turbocharged, single-acting, four-stroke diesel engine of the trunk-piston type with a cylinder bore of 280 mm, a stroke of 320 mm, and a crankshaft speed of 720/750 rpm. Each genset has an output of 4,230 kW.

MAN Diesel V28/32S engines are well-known for their ability to run on HFO and high reliability. They are also characterised by long TBOs and have a lifetime of over 20 years if properly maintained. They are commonly employed worldwide by power plants, and as auxiliary engines aboard ships. A total of well over 5,000 such engines are currently in service.

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