The oil ministry will provide the first list of domestic manufacturers of products and equipment used in oil and gas projects in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (began March 21), deputy director of the oil ministry's Commodity Procurement System Project told ISNA.
Currently the competency of companies are being assessed, Gholamreza Moeini said, also pointing to the Commodity Coding System established by the oil ministry, whereby more than one million commodities will be ultimately chosen to be incorporated into the national coding system.
Compilation of a consolidated vendors list by the ministry is a move toward establishing an online tendering system, which would do away with scattered vendors lists, prevent mismanagement and fraud, and increase transparency of transactions. The vendors list brings together the names of firms certified by the oil ministry to bid, and will allow the whole process of oil supply to be carried out electronically.
The project is included in a new directive issued by the oil minister, which calls for supporting domestic manufacturers in the face of restrictions in foreign trade. Companies will be grouped in four major categories based on their particular products and services.
In limited tenders, the oil ministry search for competent companies in the vendors list. The firms have to comply with the Iranian Gas Standards (IGS) and Iranian Petroleum Standards (IPS), which were adopted according to international standards, and based on Iran's geographical conditions. In public tenders; however, all companied are allowed to participate. The oil ministry is not authorized to utilize a foreign commodity should that commodity be domestically manufactured and included in the list. If there is more than one Iranian firm providing the equipment, they will be chosen on a competitive basis.
"Almost 98 percent of equipment utilized by the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) is manufactured domestically," Abdolrahim Sabouri, advisor of the Self-Sufficiency Department at the NIGC said Saturday. More than 2,000 companies have registered for inclusion on the oil ministry's vendors list by an October 23, 2014, deadline. A list of 1,200 companies has been approved for final evaluation.
