U.S. chasing up to 200 Lockheed Martin F-16 sales

PARIS (Reuters) - The United States is chasing opportunities to sell up to 200 F-16 fighter jets on top of an Indian tender for 126 aircraft for which the plane is among the contenders, a Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) executive said.

"There are something between 100 and 200 aircraft that are very near-term opportunities that we are chasing, mainly in the Middle East and Far East, excluding India," F-16 programme manager Bill McHenry said at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday.

Lockheed Martin has a backlog of 95 F-16 orders, with production assured through 2012, executives told a news briefing. The F-16 has a unit price of around $40-50 million.