TEHRAN – The National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC) is going to sign two deals worth 500 billion rials (about $11.9 million) with domestic knowledge-based companies in the near future for meeting some of its technological needs, an official with the company announced.

Sadeq Fathollahi, who is NISOC's technical director, said these deals include domestic production of materials for preventing drilling fluid wastage and the design, manufacturing, and providing services for inflatable pipe plugs.

According to the official, following the government’s new strategies for supporting the country’s knowledge-based companies, NISOC has been pursuing the supply of its technological needs through domestic startups and knowledge-based firms.

“These needs mostly include goods, parts, materials, equipment, services, and software in the fields of drilling, exploitation engineering, processing, geology, and chemicals,” Fathollahi explained.

NISOC Managing Director Ahmad Mohammadi previously said that his company has successfully indigenized the knowledge for the production of over 1,000 oil equipment items.

NISOC has been seriously pursuing a program for supporting domestic producers in the oil industry, Mohammadi said in February 2020.

Back in December 2019, the company released a list of 7500 equipment items needed in the country’s oil industry, to be manufactured by domestic producers.

Following the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions and the problems caused by high volatility and rising exchange rates in the country’s currency market, Iran’s oil ministry was faced with some problems regarding the supply of necessary equipment in the oil industry, so it applied new strategies to focus more on domestic production.

The company urged all its subsidiaries to follow the mentioned strategy and to take the necessary measures for meeting their technological and equipment needs through domestic companies.

EF/MA