Questions buyers and bidders ask us

Bond is a compliance and tender company in Empire Building, Business Tower 4, Erbil. The team runs five services across Iraq and the Gulf: compliance, digital authority, prequalification, market entry and the tender engine.

Yes. We work anywhere in Iraq, in Basra, Baghdad, Kirkuk, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok, and in the Gulf. The office is in Erbil and the team travels to the site. Most of the work sits in Basra and the Kurdistan Region, where the operators and the EPC contractors are.

Contractors, service companies, manufacturers, traders and food producers that sell to the oil and gas operators, government bodies and UN agencies. The buyers behind that work include Basra Oil Company, Basrah Gas Company, Rumaila, DNO, Genel Energy, Gulf Keystone, HKN, UNDP, UNICEF and WFP. Company size runs from ten people to several hundred.

No. Most companies need two or three of them, and we run those at the same time. Compliance opens the door and many companies already hold the certificate. If you hold it, we move to the next step and start on the registrations or the tender work.

Tender files, financials, certificates and other company documents you send us are read only by the people working that file. Every member of our team works under a non-disclosure agreement. Nothing you give us appears on this site or anywhere else without written permission. Client work we publish is anonymised: sector and region only, no names, no logos.

Any ISO standard, anywhere in Iraq. Fourteen have their own page on this site: ISO 9001, 14001, 45001, 22000, 29001, 27001, 50001, 37001, 17025, 13485, 55001, 20000-1, 21001 and 39001. ISO 9001 is the one we sell most, because the KRG Approved Suppliers Center and the MNR vendor list write their quality criteria around it.

It depends on the buyer. A certificate from a locally accredited body such as KQC in Erbil is valid in Iraq and for KRG lists. KRG lists accept locally accredited bodies. Oil companies, UN agencies and foreign buyers typically ask for a certificate issued under the international accreditation arrangement (GAC, formerly the IAF). Bureau Veritas has an Erbil office. SGS and TÜV operate in Iraq.

The certificate track is the compliance system prepared in five days, so the company qualifies for lists and tenders. The implementation track builds the same system into daily work in six to fourteen weeks, with trained staff and live records. The client chooses the track on every standard.

Three years from the date the certification body issues it. The body runs a surveillance audit each year and a recertification audit in year three. We keep the surveillance and renewal dates in a calendar and prepare the company before each visit. A missed surveillance audit can put the certificate at risk.

We analyse what the company does and what its buyers and tenders require, then send a proposal with the scope and the track. Documentation is written in the language the company works in: Arabic, Kurdish or English. Certification body fees are passed through at cost with the receipts.

Procurement officers and tender evaluators search the company name before they shortlist. They compare the certificates, projects and contact details on the website against the bid file. A site that is missing or out of date weakens a bid that is otherwise complete. We build the site so the company is found, in Google and in the AI answers.

AEO is visibility in AI search. Buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity for suppliers in Iraq before they open a browser, and the answer is built from pages those systems can read and cite. We structure the company's pages so they are the source the answer engines quote, and we track which questions return the company.

Search visibility, AI search visibility, and the website behind both. Then the brand assets a buyer asks for: logo and identity, a company profile as a PDF, a brand film, product video and photography. The site is written in English, Arabic and Kurdish. We review what already exists, then send a proposal.

The Iraqi state companies under the Ministry of Oil come first: Basra Oil Company, North Oil Company, Midland Oil Company, Missan Oil Company, South Gas Company, Basrah Gas Company, the Iraqi Drilling Company, the State Company for Oil Projects and the Oil Products Distribution Company. The international operators come next: BP, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Eni, Lukoil, PetroChina, CNOOC, Shell, Gazprom Neft, Crescent Petroleum, Dana Gas, DNO, Genel Energy, Gulf Keystone, HKN and ShaMaran. In Kurdistan the Ministry of Natural Resources vendor list at mnronline.com/avl feeds those operators. The government lists come last.

The KRG Approved Suppliers Center at asc.gov.krd is annual and needs certificates from recognised conformity bodies. The federal Ministry of Planning runs contractor classification and the federal unified electronic tendering platform. We confirm the current instruction before filing. UNGM at ungm.org is one free registration covering UNDP, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR, IOM and FAO, in English, with three levels.

An expired Erbil Chamber of Commerce certificate is a documented reason for disqualification on KRG lists, and that certificate is step one on the registers we file. Other common causes: tax clearance out of date, financial statements missing a year, HSE documents that name people who have left, and certificates from a body the list owner does not recognise.

You give it the instruction and the tender files. The engine reads every file, numbers every requirement, fills every form it can, drafts the bid in English and Arabic, and flags what only your company can answer. You approve the draft and we submit it in the required format before the deadline. One live tender ran to 31 files and 75 requirements.

The answers only your company holds: the prices, the technical approach, the references and the people you put forward. The engine flags each one inside the draft. You approve every requirement mapping and the final file before anything is submitted.

Format errors, and most of them are avoidable. In that tender the financial bid had to be a separate file, attachments had to be PDF, and submitting the Excel forms was grounds for disqualification. Two large, verifiable references with contactable people were required. Prices were quoted in US dollars and paid in dinars at the Central Bank rate.

Yes. Part of the work is saying which tenders to leave. If the requirement list names a certificate the company does not hold, or the reference values sit above what the company has delivered, the bid costs money and time and still scores low. We say so before the work starts.

In the Kurdistan Region, yes. An LLC registered in Erbil can be fully foreign-owned, with no local partner and no sponsor. In federal Iraq, companies registered under the Companies Law have needed at least 51 percent Iraqi ownership since 2019, and the National Investment Commission licence is the federal route to full foreign ownership. That is why most entrants register in Erbil first.

The slowest single step is legalising documents issued in your home country, so we start it on day one. In the Kurdistan Region an LLC or branch registers in two to four weeks. Federal ministry approvals for foreign participation run on the ministries' own calendars, commonly three to six months.

Ten items, handed over as one file: the entity and its registrar filing, name reservation, founding contract in Arabic, manager appointment, capital deposit certificate, tax registration, social security registration, Chamber of Commerce membership, a corporate bank account and a registered address. Counsel handles the legal filings from the same file.

Price depends on the scope: how many standards, how many registrations, how large the tender file is. Every engagement starts with a written proposal, signed before any work starts. We never take a percentage of a tender award. Ask what your project costs on the first call.

You book a call of about twenty minutes. We analyse what the company does and what its buyers and tenders require, then send a proposal with the scope and the timeline. The proposal names what we deliver and what the company delivers. Work starts when it is signed.

A contact who can answer questions and sign, the company registration documents, a valid Erbil Chamber of Commerce certificate, tax clearance, recent financial statements, and access to the people who run the work. For certification work, staff time for training, the first internal audit and the management review.