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Iran buysoffshore drilling rig from China

Business Materials 21 December 2013 15:58 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.21

By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran has bought an offshore drilling rig from China, the Mehr News Agency quoted Abbas Aliabadi, the managing director of Iran Power Plant Projects Management Company (MAPNA), as saying on December 21.

The drilling rig has some 2500hp output and has been purchased along with its side equipment, the managing director added.

The drilling rig will be put into operation in February at the Forouz-B gas field located in the Persian Gulf, Aliabadi said.

The gas field is projected to yield one billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

Iranian manufacturers are capable to build drilling rigs which cost 600 trillion rials (about $24 million) less than importing its Chinese-made similar, IRNA quoted Iranian MP Amir Abbas Soltani as saying on November 15.

Each Chinese-made drilling rig is imported at about 1700 trillion rials, while building the same rig domestically with higher quality costs about 1100 trillion rials, Soltani said.

It seems that the agreement which was signed last year with the Jahad-e Daneshgahi to build around 14 drilling rigs domestically has been annulled, he added.

Some brokers and profiteers easily circumvent the law for supporting domestic production and import Chinese -made drilling rigs just for the sake of more profit, he said.

Nearly two years ago on July 19, 2011, Iran's oil ministry's website quoted Deputy Oil minister Hamdollah Mohammadnejad as saying that the country reached self-sufficiency in building onshore drilling rigs.

At that time, Mohammadnejad said that five domestic companies were manufacturing onshore drilling rigs through reverse engineering and indigenizing the required technology.

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