Lister Petter returns to the power market

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LP430EG2 EU Stage 5 55 kW engine LP430EG2 EU Stage 5 55 kW engine (All photos provided by Lister Petter)

Lister Petter is a UK-based engine manufacturer which can trace its roots back to 1865. That said, the company only became known as Lister Petter in 1986 when Hawker Siddeley, the British aircraft manufacturing group and then-owner of both the Lister and Petter brands, merged the two into a single company.

As independent organisations, Lister had developed petrol engines for agricultural use. On the other hand, Petter had focused on diesel engines for vehicle applications. Brought together as a single entity, the Lister Petter name became synonymous with diesel power for agriculture, water pumps and power generation.

The engines were known around the world for their reliability, but the technology offering eventually fell behind that of other engine providers. Moving forward to today, Simon Lee, Business Development director and de facto head of global operations at Lister Petter, says that the revamped company has plans to create a new product portfolio the equal of any other engine OEM.

“A lot has happened in the last few years. The Mason family [former owners] started the process of selling the company in 2021 and that was finalised in February 2022. The Lister Petter brand is now owned by a consortium of Chinese investors, but predominantly run by one businessman who has a background in the hotel industry.

“Everybody knows the Lister Petter name, but we’ve effectively been building the company back from almost nothing. Starting in 2022 we introduced the first new Chinese-built products, then we moved on to new engineering and development to fill the range gaps. Alongside this we have strengthened our Gloucester facility to cope with the increased demand for legacy products. With all that, 2023 ended up being our first proper sales year,” recounts Lee.

Career history
Simon Lee, Lister Petter Simon Lee, Lister Petter

Simon Lee, the current Business Development director at Lister Petter, has had an extended career in the engine production industry. Before joining the new company in 2023, he was business manager for Northern Europe at Perkins Engines and Caterpillar for 22 years.

After leaving that role he started his own media company, which led to working with Bauer Media in Peterborough, UK. But the offer of a senior position with Lister Petter brought him back into the engine industry.

“I took some convincing; it’s a company offering Chinese products and while I had seen the quality of the Perkins plant in Wuxi, I wanted to see the factories for myself. And I can say that it’s absolutely phenomenal what’s happening in China. The product quality really stands up. We’ve had one warranty claim in the last 6,000 engines supplied.”

Engine production

The engines manufactured under the Lister Petter brand are now produced in the UK and in China. The UK site, which is operated under license by Sleeman & Hawken, produces legacy models used in industrial applications and gen sets. The TR- and LPW-Series models assembled there were first launched back in the 1980s.

“The TR1, TR2 and TR3 models are unregulated engines,” explains Lee. “We will continue to build these while there is still a market, but that market is shrinking rapidly due to tighter emissions regulations. Even in areas where there are no emissions regulations, customers are asking for Stage 2 and 3 models.”

Interestingly, the lead in the Chinese consortium which now owns Lister Petter is a dedicated Anglophile. As such, there is a strong desire to maintain the UK factory and with it the link to the history of both Lister and Petter. So despite some cost and quality issues, the Gloucestershire site looks set to remain – at time of writing, negotiations were underway to extend the contract with Sleeman & Hawken.

“I don’t want to get into a race to the bottom. Instead of selling to everyone in a territory, we will pick who we work with.” Simon Lee, Lister Petter

With a resigned shrug, Lee attempts to predict the future of the TR engine series: “How long does the TR have left in it? Maybe five or 10 years? Maybe two years. I don’t know. But we will always have a manufacturing and assembly facility in the UK, that’s guaranteed.”

Following on from that, the plan for 2025 is to start setting up Lister Petter offices in Peterborough. This will include a training facility for distributors and an area for workshops and product launch events for global OEM customers.

“That is our main priority right now, getting these facilities in place and ready to go,” says Lee.

He pauses, as if taking stock of the situation. “You know, things are moving very quickly and we’ve got a lot going on. In my days at Perkins, Lister Petter wasn’t even on the radar. There were a lot of good intentions, but no one came through [for the company]. But now, with the backing we have, anything is possible.”

Range and investment

With that backing, Lister Petter is continuing to expand its product portfolio. The current range of diesel engines now extends from five through to 960 kW; 2025 will see the launch of a 2000 kW diesel model.

There are also plans to introduce a range of gaseous fuel engines, with outputs from 16 to 625 kW. On top of that, there is a new Stage 5 -compliant model. As Lee points out, the company is on a very different path to that which might be more familiar to Lister Petter customers of a certain age.

Where other OEMs have had the benefit of watching the market and making incremental changes to their respective products in response to market trends, it appears that the new Lister Petter has had to reach that same level from a standing start.

“I think that’s a reflection on how invested our senior management is with the company,” states Lee. “And the serious amount of investment they were prepared to put forward. They are clearly in this for the long term.”

Production in China

Currently, engines produced by Lister Petter in China are assembled across two sites in Shanghai. The engines are built by a contract manufacturer to company specifications which were developed in 2022 by a series of consultant partners including Ricardo and AVL.

End-of-line at the assembly plant in Shanghai End-of-line at the assembly plant in Shanghai

Lister Petter neither owns nor operates its own manufacturing site in China, but that could be set to change, as there are plans to setup a local plant for assembly of larger engines in excess of 25 litres and output greater than 600 kW.

“The plants where our engines are assembled [in China] deliver excellent quality,” says Lee. “Some of the production processes are more traditional for the Stage 2 products, but when you look at the Stage 5 engines, the production facilities and processes stand up to any European factory.”

Where the plant in the UK harks back to an older time, with many of the assembly processes still completed by hand, the plant in China is almost 100% automated. Lee recounts seeing just a few people around the lines, there primarily to ensure the robotics were functioning correctly.

“As it stands, the setup in China is working well,” he continues. “We can offer a very short lead time, our pricing is exceptional and the quality stands up for itself. Everyone who has gone over to test an engine has placed an order – we’ve just signed off on orders from a series of Turkish companies which are supplying gen sets to NATO – both NATO and UNICEF are using Lister Petter power that’s coming out of China.”

That might seem like a conflict of interest, but Lee says not so, as the engines are built by what is still a UK company to their own specifications. Related components are supplied by global brands, including Bosch, Denso and Liebherr.

Moving forward

“We still get customers who want the TR,” says Lee. “It’s expensive, compared to other products, but that’s what people want. That engine has a great reputation.”

But with the TR and LPW models coming to the end of their already long production runs, Simon says that there are a series of options for the UK plant. The most likely route will see imports of the ‘core’ engine from China which would then be finished in the UK using European components, including the radiator and other ancillaries. The engine core would be delivered complete with all necessary machining – the plant in Hardwicke, Gloucestershire does not have that specialised capability.

TR2 engine assembly at the Lister Petter production site in Gloucester TR2 engine assembly at the Lister Petter production site in Gloucester

Looking further to the future, in addition to the Peterborough offices there could also be a new UK-based assembly facility which would operate only as a CKD (completely knocked down) location to finish engines delivered from China with European parts.

Lister Petter was present at Dubai’s Middle East Energy trade show in 2023, a move which created quite a stir. “People were over the moon to see the name back,” Lee says with a smile. “But at the same time I think quite a few people were wondering what was going on, whether there was a long-term plan.”

Some larger OEM customers were doubtful as to the validity of the comeback, but Lee explains that immediately starting work with them was never the plan.

“The strategy from the start was to work with smaller OEMs, seed the market, then let customers go to the larger OEMs and ask for a Lister Petter engine – and that’s what happened. I’m in negotiations with an OEM which used to take more than 10,000 engines a year from Lister Petter. Then there’s a company in South Africa which buys about 7,500 units per year to deliver power for telecoms. We’re already supplying units into this sector.”

Asked about production capacity, Lee says that the plants in China would have no problem delivering 20,000 engines per year. “200,000 might be a little more difficult,” he notes. Common wisdom says that bigger volumes will help to achieve a lower price point, but Lee says there’s no plan to position Lister Petter as a volume manufacturer and capture market share with cheap goods.

“I don’t want to get into a race to the bottom. Instead of selling to everyone in a territory, we will pick who we work with. We’re not a premium brand as yet, but we don’t want to be a bargain brand, either. We are committed to providing cost-effective solutions,” he says in closing.

Automation features across production in China Automation features across production in China
Reputation recovery

Lister Petter is a well-known name which has built up a reputation for delivering quality products. But according to Simon Lee, the previous owners had taken the brand as far as they could and decided to sell.

“The new [Chinese] owners had thought they would buy the brand and immediately sell 10,000 engines a year,” says Lee. “That wasn’t going to happen, largely due to the standing of the company.” Continuing, he explains how the company’s reputation had taken a hit over the last decade; well documented issues had damaged the brand identity in some markets.

Now, Lee is tasked with convincing potential customers that this new iteration of Lister Petter is not associated with the previous troubles. “We’re building a company from the ground up, it’s a completely new operation. And we’re starting to get the attention of global customers.”

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