GE Engine for A350?
 

I'm hearing rumours that GE are to offer an engine for Airbus A350s. Anyone else heard anything similar?

Seems extraordinary. Isn't it a bit late in the day to be thinking of getting into that market? RR have had a clear run for 854 sales so far. That's a lot to have given away...

So that they could stretch it way beyond the -1000 into 777-9 terrain?
Isn't GE Boeing's risk sharing partner on the 777X investing their own funding into that program?

Possibly.

Unfortunately I don't have anything close to a source I can cite. I'm not a shareholder in any company and have no professional association (with any part of the aviation industry) either. So it's a fairly tenuous, though intriguing, rumour.

GE told Airbus they wouldn't be a supplier for the A350 back when the program was launched when it became obvious that the A350 wasn't just targeting the 787, they were going after the 777 as well (where GE has an effective monopoly). Nothing in that regard has changed - plus as K Kraut notes GE is now a risk sharing partner on the 777X so they have even less incentive to make the A350 more appealing.
Besides, GE doesn't really have something that would be readily suitable to the A350 - the GEnx is a bit small, the GE9X is too big. So GE would need to invest a billion dollars or more to create an engine optimized for the A350. Unless GE thinks they could offer a major improvement in fuel burn/operating costs relative to the Trent (and take over the lions share of the A350 market - like they did on the 777 with the GE90-115B) it wouldn't make economic sense.
In short, I seriously doubt it'll happen - probably just someone trying muddy the water to get a better deal out of Rolls.

Maybe this is just meant to be a little signal by Airbus towards RR to come up a little faster with their Advance and UltraFan?

What an engine manufacturer looks for is a long runway program with lots of aircraft in the offing and a reduced need to compete with one or more competitors. For example, GE declined to compete for an engine on the 757 program for that reason and the fact they didn't have an engine to fit the aircraft at the time. GE did decide to partner with Pratt on the A-380, but that minimized the risk of the program not being successful (long runway) in the end. The A-350 will be successful if the combination aircraft/RR engine proves to be what was advertised. There is still work to be done on the engine to make that happen...

They need to prove customers really want the -1000 first. IMO, the vast majority of orders are the -800/900. I see nothing changing this.

There are virtually no orders for the 800.

The 800 will fade away just like the A318CEO and A319NEO will. Wrong airframe, wrong time.

Having been involved in a few 'corporate cooperation 'deals like GE and BOeing on the 777 I would be very surprised if there wasn't some restriction on GE supplying engines to a competing product. Otherwise the exclusivity only works one way and Boeing get nothing in return while GE hedge their bets and have the opportunity for even more sales . All Boeing get out of it is err... well nothing

Orders are as follows:

-800: 8
-900: 677
-1000: 169

Airbus are looking at 280+ tons MTOW for the -900, and +315 tons for the -1000. When the latter happens, the 777-300ER will get its legs amputated. It'll be a 8000NM, 370 passenger, beast and is assured to receive a very large number of orders, when the -300ER replacement cycle kicks in for real.

Well I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. There's certainly a lot of -300ERs around, slowly wearing themselves out in service.