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 Iran has signed a one-billion-euro (1.44-billion-dollar) deal with a German firm to build 100 gas turbo-compressors, an industry official said in newspapers on Wednesday.

The contract provides for the unnamed German firm to transfer the know-how to build, install and run the equipment needed to exploit and transport gas, said Iran's Gas Engineering and Development Company head, Ali Reza Gharibi.

The German company has already delivered 45 such turbo-compressors to Iran, Gharibi said, according to Iran Daily. Industry experts said he was apparently referring to Siemens.

But the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) denied the signing of a deal.

"Following a report about a one-billion-Euro contract between Iran and Germany, the public relation of NIGC denied this," it said on its website.

The NIGC spoke of a contract with an "Iranian company to build 100 turbo-compressors in Iran using a foreign partner's know-how," without naming the firms.

The reported 2010-2015 deal for material not under an international embargo comes as the Islamic republic faces the threat of new financial, technological and international trade sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme.