TEHRAN -- The National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) has ordered 30 tankers to be built following the plans to reinvigorate its marine fleet, and to increase its transportation capacity.

Head of the NITC Planning Department Abdolsamad Ta'aqol as putting the total capacity of the tankers at 6.09 million tons, IRNA reported.

Ta'aqol said that 18 of the tankers have been already delivered to Iran and have been put into operation, adding that the rest will be delivered by the end of the Iranian calendar year of 1383 (ending March 21, 2005).

He added that 23 of the tankers will be built in South Korea, five in China, and two others at Iran's Bandar Abbas port.

Ta'aqol said that five tankers of the new fleet will be specified for carrying oil products each with a transportation capacity of 35,000 tons, and that they will be commuting between Iran's ports and the oil rigs in the Persian Gulf.

The NITC official also said that five other tankers each with a capacity of 98,000 tons have been specified to Bandar Abbas Refinery, adding that they will be carrying crude oil from the Khark Island for the refinery.

These tankers, he added, will also be used for international missions.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ta'aqol said that to build the tankers the NITC had used over U.S.$1.5 billion foreign credit under extraordinary conditions of which seven percent of the total price of a tanker is paid in cash, and the rest 93 percent will be financed by foreign banks.

The head of NITC Planning Department said that the company's fleet had over the past year transported as much as 385,560,000 barrels of oil, adding that the transportation capacity of the company will hit 643 million barrels by the end of 2003.