Petrochemical Research and Technology Company and Iran Standard and Industrial Research Institute have signed an agreement to accelerate research and development as well as quality assurance in the oil industry.
The agreement is aimed at ensuring that oil and gas equipment manufactured by domestic companies are on a par with international standards, Shana reported.
The company and the institute are subsidiaries of Oil Ministry and Iranian National Standard Organization, respectively.
According to a joint statement released after signing the agreement, the SRI will team up with the ministry to run a series of quality assurance tests on essential oil equipment manufactured inside the country and will issue certificates for the equipment that tick the right boxes.
Iran needs foreign equipment and technology to rebuild its oil industry. The country has turned to international companies for new drilling and exploration equipment, but is equally fast-tracking plans to develop essential oil equipment at home to gradually wean its industry off expensive foreign equipment.
Siemens Delivering Equipment
The first batch of high-tech turbines and compressors blocked by Siemens due to international sanctions was released last month and unloaded in Asalouyeh in Bushehr Province. Hassan Bouyeri, director of South Pars phases 17 and 18, said the cargo, which the Oil Ministry had bought to upgrade its aging oil and gas facilities, consisted of seven sets of electro-compressors to be installed in the South Pars phases 12, 17 and 18 refineries.
Siemens' managers have pledged to ship and install the rest of the seized high-tech turbines and compressors as soon as possible. It is planning to expand collaboration with Iranian firms, including Oil Turbo Compressor Company, which manufactures gas compressors, turbo generators and gas turbines.
Plans have been devised to promote the domestic companies' long-term cooperation with the German company for manufacturing state-of-the-art oil and gas equipment that meet industry-specific requirements in the oil and gas segment, onshore gas production, or gas transport through pipelines.
The war-torn Iraq as well as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in Central Asia will be the main target of Iran-Siemens production linkage. But the import of modern industrial equipment is not the way Iran intends to go for long. The cornerstone of the Persian Gulf country’s oil and gas agreements with the international giants is the transfer of knowhow to fill the technological gap, which has been widened during years of severe sanctions.
Last year, representatives of the oil and gas company Eni and the giant Total announced in Tehran that the Italian and French companies are ready to transfer cutting-edge technology to Iranian companies, reducing the cost of production.
Standards Committee Proposed
A deputy oil minister called for setting up a national standards committee for the oil and gas sector to indigenize international standards and authorize them.
Mohammad Reza Moqaddam was speaking in a joint press conference with Nayyereh Pirouzbakht, the head of INSO, on Saturday. Referring to the ministry’s plan to establish an electronic system in all subsidiary companies for providing commodities, Moqaddam said the new system can help organize the process of providing goods and reduce the cost of projects, as 65% of the costs account for purchasing goods and equipment.
