SHANA -- The Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) signed 4 memoranda of understanding with domestic companies for supplying boats and standardization of flexible oil pipes.

The documents were signed on Monday evening on the sidelines of the International Kish Marin Industries Exhibition in Kish Island.

IOOC inked the MoUs with Barzin Energy Noavar, Parto Tadbir Pars, Morvarid Parsian Kish and Batservice-Contracting companies.

Three of the documents were aimed at supplying vessels and tug boats required in IOOC operations. Construction and procurement of ASD tug boats used for loading and exporting oil concerned one of the deals. Each ASD boat costs $10 million to be built.

Another deal concerned construction of passenger boats with the capacity of carrying 80 people and freight with an investment of $5.2 million.

Morvarid Parsian Kish also committed itself to build two anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessels with over $20 million of investment.

The last MoU concerned standardization of flexible oil pipes which is licensed by a European company and would be complete in a matter of two years.

�The policies and strategies of the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum are optimum exploitation of the potentialities of domestic manufacturers and signature of these MoUs was aimed at realizing the ministry�s goals in this regard,� said Hamid Bovard, IOOC CEO, after signing the deals.

He said the number of ships and tug boats used in IOOC operations was at its lowest from 95% to currently 30% being owned by foreign companies. He also expressed optimism that by signing such deals, all of the boats would be owned by Iranian companies.