TEHRAN - Managing Director of National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) said renovation of the tanker fleet is a priority and the infrastructure is being prepared for constructing oil tankers inside the country based on international standards.

In an interview conducted by ISNA, Nasrollah Sardashti said that NITC currently owns 60 vessels of which 32 went through overhaul in China and UAE last year
“In the next eight months, we have plans for repairing 12 other vessels, two of which are ready to be dry docked for overhaul,” the official said.

In late June, Iranian technicians managed to repair a giant oil tanker inside the country for the first time in the history of Iran’s shipping industry.

According to the NITC office of public relations, the 320,000-ton supertanker (called Dore) was successfully dry-docked in Bandar Abbas at Iran Shipbuilding and Offshore Industries Complex (ISOICO) on June 24.

Dore belongs to the national Iranian oil tanker fleet and is a "giant oil tanker" with a length of 333 meters.

This was the first time that repair and maintenance services of a super oil vessel is assigned to a domestic repair yard.

According to NITC Technical Advisor Ali Mansourzadeh, before this Iranian technicians had successfully completed the overhauling and maintenance operations of a variety of smaller vessels in a 6-month period, including MARIA 3 tanker with a capacity of 13,600 cubic meters, POLARIS with a capacity of 45,000 tons, and ARK and ARGO each with a capacity of 100,000 tons.

However, due to some technological limitations, the repair operations of supertankers like Dore was carried out in foreign countries.

EF/MA