UANI

Soilmec is a large Italy-based international construction company that specializes in below-ground construction. It operates 12 subsidiary companies and has 45 distributors (Company Website). 

Soilmec has a full branch in Tehran which handles "sales, customer care, technological assistance, spare parts, and maintenance." 

Soilmec manufactures a wide range of tunneling equipment. The New York Times has reported that Iran is using an underground tunnel network to hide missiles and nuclear facilities.

Indeco is an Italian manufacturer of hydraulic breakers, with a number of subsidiaries, and regional headquarters in the USA, UK, and Australia.

Touranto Co. P.J.S., a company supplies/construction equipment distributor, as an authorized distributor on its Italian website (Indeco Italian Company Website). 

Touranto lists Indeco products under the products section of its website (Touranto Company Website).

IRASCO's client list is primarily Iranian, including the NIOC (Company Website)

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"Irasco's shareholders are the German trade and consulting company Ascotec Gmbh (51% of the shares) and the Iranian engineering and general contracting company IRITEC Iran International Engineering Company (49% of the shares).  Supply of Industrial plants and machineries to Iran is the activity  of the company.  Skilled Iranian and Italian personnel are working together in different departments such as projects, commercial, shipping and expediting, marketing, quality, project financing and administration." (Company Website)

"The Italian technology company helped Iran with its Mesbah communications satellite program. "Communications satellites" can of course be easily diverted for military purposes and used, for example, as spy satellites and, more ominously, to help pinpoint nuclear strikes. Despite these risks, the Mesbah project enjoyed Rome's political backing, as La Stampa reported at the time. Italy's ambassador to Tehran back then, Riccardo Sessa, was even present at the 2003 signing ceremony of the deal, according to Italian news agency ANSA.

Under the terms of the agreement, Carlo Gavazzi Space did not just sell a finished product but also transferred technology and know-how. In a 2005 presentation of the Mesbah project posted on the Internet, L. Zucconi, managing director at Carlo Gavazzi Space, explained that his company "has worked in close cooperation with ITRC (Iran Telecommunication Research Center) / IROST (Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology) in the design, development and manufacturing of the MESBAH system. . . . The Flight Model has been manufactured partly in Italy and partly in Iran, with the work sharing scheme defined together with ITRC / IROST. . . . The MESBAH satellite will be controlled from one Ground Station located at Teheran and operated by ITRC / IROST personnel. . . . The 1000 (user) terminals to be used for the service will be produced by Iranian Industries."

"Having initiated the MESBAH project, the I.R. (Islamic Republic) of Iran has acquired a space infrastructure and space capacity," making Iran "a new player in the space community prepared to face new challenging projects." Carlo Gavazzi Space "look[s] forward for future cooperation."

Two months ago, Gen. Mahdi Farahi, director of Iran's Aerospace Industries, said Carlo Gavazzi Space would also help launch into space the successor model, the Mesbah-2. The Italian company denies this." (The Wall Street Journal, "The Rome-Tehran Axis," 1/14/2010)

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Outline of the MESBEH project. (Iranian Telecommunication Research Center, "The MESBEH Project", September 2005)

The Duferco Group's Iranian Branch, Kemco AG (Company Website)

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"The list of about 1,000 Italian companies active in Iran includes such household names as Eni—the energy giant is Iran's biggest business partner in Europe according to the Italian-Iranian Chamber of Commerce—as well as Fiat, Ansaldo, Maire Tecnimont, Danieli and Duferco." (Wall Street Journal, "The Rome-Tehran Axis," January 2010)

"The list of about 1,000 Italian companies active in Iran includes such household names as Eni—the energy giant is Iran's biggest business partner in Europe according to the Italian-Iranian Chamber of Commerce—as well as Fiat, Ansaldo, Maire Tecnimont, Danieli and Duferco." (Wall Street Journal, The Rome-Tehran Axis, 1/14/2010)

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"Italy's Danieli & Company has been awarded the job of setting up a big facility in Khuzestan to build steel sheet for oil and gas pipelines. The $232 million contract signed on 25 October requires a separate financing deal being negotiated with Mediocredito Centrale." (MEED, "Iran: Danieli Steel Contract awaits Finance Line." 1999)

Iran Branch Office (Company Website)

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Firm/country: Tecnimont/Italy;

Firm activity: Engineering, procurement, and construction contractor

for a LDPE plant in Sanandaj that will produce 300,000 metric tons per year;

Status: Startup was scheduled for 2008;

Commercial activity: Not reported;

Firm comment: Contacted on February 18, 2010; no response as of March 22, 2010.

"Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. has received a Letter of Intent from Petropars Ltd. (“PPL”), a company owned by Naftiran Intertrade Company (“NICO”) which is a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company (“NIOC”), for the realization of Onshore EPC Package No.3 (“EPC3”), part of an integrated Gas Treatment Plant in Tombak (Iran).

The project “South Pars Gas Field Development Phase 12” of the South Pars Gas Field, which is on the border with Qatar and considered the largest gas deposit in the world, foresees the realization of a Gas Treatment Plant of 3 billion standard cubic feet per day (SCFD) capacity and includes Liquid Processing (EPC2), Gas Processing (EPC3) and Off- Site Facilities.

The Onshore EPC3 package will be executed by a Consortium formed by Tecnimont S.p.A. and the Iranian companies Nargan, Dorriz and Gamma. The EPC3 cost is estimated to be approximately €1.3 billion, while Tecnimont’s scope of work will include overall project management, engineering, procurement services and construction assistance for a total amount exceeding €200 million.  The Contract is expected to be signed in July 2009 and its completion is expected end of 2012." (Company Press Release, 6/9/2009)

•   “The site assembly of the TBM and back-up for the hydraulic tunnel of Dasht E Zahab in Iran has starter this month.  The DSU type TBM has been manufactured by Herrenchnecht on SELI Divisione Tecnologie specifications and basic design.” (Seli News List, “Iran: Dasht & Zahab - Backup for TBM HK,” 1/12/05)

• “A spokesman for Seli told me last week that the construction equipment firm was working on several Iranian tunnel projects worth more than €220 million, including for the Tehran metro and water tunnels in Nosud and Kerman. The company's Web site says that one of the contracts it just recently finished involved the sale of equipment and technical assistance to the Iranian company Ghaem—a Revolutionary Guard firm, according to the U.S. Treasury.

  The technical know-how and machinery to build tunnels is of course crucial for the regime's efforts to hide its nuclear installations.

  When asked about his Iran business, the president of Seli, Remo Grandori, told me Wednesday ‘our machines and expertise are not used for military purposes, or we couldn't have received the authorization of Italian Foreign Ministry." When I pressed harder, he acknowledged that Seli "tunnels are like large mines. Iran can certainly use these tunnels to hide weapons, but I don't know anything about it.’” (The Wall Street Journal, “The Rome-Tehran Axis,” 1/14/10)

• “Two European concerns—Wirth, from Germany, and Seli, from Italy—sold tunnel-boring equipment to Iran for its Ghomroud water project.

  Seli, for its part, sold its tunnel-making goods to an Iranian company called Ghaem. This sale, too, was found to be exempt from any restrictions or embargoes. But the U.S. Treasury has designated Ghaem as yet another subsidiary of the IRGC. Seli, in the meantime, is also involved in other important projects in Iran, among them the much larger Kerman water-tunnel project. That deal, worth 134.6 million euros over five years, was signed in 2004—with the active involvement of Sahel Consulting Engineers.

  Unquestionably, the equipment has been used to dig water tunnels at Ghomroud and Kerman. Once the digging is finished, though, the equipment be- longs to the subsidiary businesses of the IRGC, which can do with them what they wish.

  Intelligence photographs have regularly indicated that much of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program is being built deep underground, in bunkers accessible by means of tunnels. The machinery and technology for constructing such tunnels can only have been provided by Wirth and Seli.” (Commentary Magazine, “The Iranian Shell Game,” July-August 2008)

• “Seli – an Italian company in the same line of business – also provided machinery and technicians for the previous phase of the same tunnel project – which was done through a consortium of which Wirth was a partner. The deal, worth 8.5 million Euro, was completed in 2005. The client was Ghaem, another IRGC subsidiary. The deal was similarly not subject to any restrictions or embargoes.

  Another, much bigger contract is the Kerman Water Tunnel Project, a five-year deal worth 134.6 million Euro signed in 2004 with the active involvement, again, of Sahel Consulting Engineers. Italian and German tunneling equipment was thus sold to the IRGC and made available, once the water tunnel was completed, for other projects the IRGC may wish to undertake. Intelligence reports have repeatedly suggested that much of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program is being built deep underground, in bunkers that are accessible through tunnels – tunnels which only technology such as the one provided by Wirth and Seli can build.” (Transatlantic Institute, “Iran's Deceptive Commercial Practices,” 15/4/08)