Ramin Ghalambor, an NIOC official, said the 3-year deals were signed with Germany's Schmidt Kranz and Iran's Tamkargas Company.

Based on the agreement, the consortium the German company will transfer the technical savvy for manufacturing the items to its Iranian partner.

Also, it will supply 12,500 drill pipes and 1,800 drill collars to NIOC, the official said.

Drill collars are thick-walled tubular pieces machined from solid bars of steel, usually plain carbon steel but sometimes of nonmagnetic nickel-copper alloy or other nonmagnetic premium alloys. The bars of steel are drilled from end to end to provide a passage to pumping drilling fluids through the collars.

Drill pipe, is hollow, thin-walled, steel or aluminum alloy piping that is used on drilling rigs. It is hollow to allow drilling fluid to be pumped down the hole through the bit and back up the annulus. It comes in a variety of sizes, strengths, and wall thicknesses, but is typically 27 to 32 feet in length (Range 2).

Earlier this year, NIOC signed a deal with a Spanish consortium to manufacture special pipelines using corrosion resistant alloys (CRAs).

The contract, estimated at around $550 million, was signed between the NIOC, Spain-based industrial group Tubacex and Iran's Sepahan Steel Company to provide Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) with 600 kilometers of CRA pipelines in three years.