Said Mazaheri - Head of Ports & Ofshore Technology GroupTNA Consulting Engrneering Company

Offshore industries have been developed rapidly during the last couple of years due to huge investments put in oil and gas sectors In this regard, Iranian firms and companies have also got involved more and more in the offshore engineering sector. Despite of these developments and involvements some questions still exist and those are whether the way that Iranian firms and engineering companies, corporation in different sectors of offshore industries particularly in the sector of oil and gas is satisfactory. Are our knowledge and experiences good enough to continue in this sector? How we can reduce the involvement of foreign companies in this sector? How we can increase our share in this market? How we can use the services of foreign companies properly? Which one is more appropriate: moving towards the MC or enhancing our engineering abilities? How the creation of GC (General Contractors) can be speed up? What we have learnt so far? Many more questions can also be marked. In this paper it is attempted to overview the situation of oil and gas in the world, After that the situation of Iranian firms and coinpanies is described. Then it is tried to highlight some problems and obstacles, which lranian firms may face during different stages such as proposal phase, in the stage of finding a suitable foreign partner, during the study phase, at the stage of preparing EPC documents and during the supervision phase. After that lessons, which we have learnt so far, are indicated. Then some practical solutions are .given

Ofs hore industry, Iranian jrms, Iranian companies, General contractors