Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA) – South Korea will deliver 16 oil tankers to Iran in 2008, while the time for delivery of domestically built tankers is not certain.
Managing Director of the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), Mohammad Souri, said Korean companies will deliver 16 previously ordered oil tankers to Iran, 13 by the end of 2008, with the remaining 3 to be delivered in the first 4 months of 2009, press tv reported.
The orders placed for new tankers with domestic builders will tale up to 4 years to be made available to the NITC, he added.
The total cost of the 17 tankers ordered to the Republic of Korean shipbuilders is $2.05 billion, Souri said, adding that so far the company had taken delivery of one 318,000-ton tanker.
Upon completion of delivery of the ordered tankers, the transportation capacity of Iran’s marine fleet will increase to more than 10.85 million tons.
“Iran has the largest oil fleet among OPEC member states,” Ali Taheri, Managing Director of Iran’s Ports and Shipping Organization (PSO) had said earlier in a speech at Iran’s Sharif University of Technology.
