Iran to lodge complaints against EU non-suppliers

DUBAI, June 5 (Reuters) - Iran says it will make international complaints against 20 European companies for failing to supply contracted equipment for its oil refineries, Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday.

The European Union banned all EU companies from supplying equipment to Iran's oil or gas industry in 2010, while other multinationals have ceased dealing with Tehran to protect their interests in the United States.

"In the last few months, some of these foreign companies and especially some of those companies holding European licences under contract with Iran have not adhered to their contractual obligations in the development of oil refineries," deputy oil minister Ali Reza Zeighami said.

"Nearly 40 foreign companees have not carried out their contractual obligations in the plans for oil refineries," said Zeighami, who is also the director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC).

He said some goods and spare parts that Iran's oil refineries need had been received from foreign companies but that others had still not supplied equipment as they had agreed.

"Some of these companies have met their obligations through intermediaries... Iran will make a complaint about the other 20 foreign companies," Mehr quoted him as saying.

No companies were named in the report and Zeighami gave no details as to how or where Iran would make its complaints. Reuters tried to contact Iranian officials for details without success.

Inadequate refinery infrastructure and rising demand intensified Iran's gasoline import dependency until 2007 - a vulnerability that Washington and Brussels have targeted by blocking fuel supplies and technology sales.

International energy companies that had hoped to tap the country's vast gas reserves have pulled out over the last few years, followed by European engineering firms such as Technip, ABB, and Linde.

Iranian oil minister Rostam Qasemi said companies that had failed to meet their contractual obligations would be excluded from Iran's oil and gas industry in future and that Iran would complain to the EU about it. (Reporting by Marcus George and Daniel Fineren; editing by Keiron Henderson)