The English-language 'Iran Daily' quoted Akbar Torkan as saying Halliburton won the bid together with another foreign company which has been identified as Oriental.

The project to develop Phases 9 and 10 involves a 58 percent participation by the Iranian side, 42 percent of which would be in the form of foreign investment. Work is estimated to take 52 months to complete.

The project includes onshore and offshore sections, the initial phase of which is to become operational by the first quarter of 2007.

Phases 9 and 10 of the South Pars gas project will be the first in the domestic gas industry in which a US company undertakes a major portion of the investment.

After completion, the project is expected to produce 50 million cubic meters of treated natural gas per day for domestic use, a daily 80,000 barrels of gas liquids for export and a million tons of ethane for the petrochemical industry.

Texas-based Halliburton is currently involved in major reconstruction work in neighboring Iraq.

Founded in 1919, the company is one of the world's largest providers of products and services to oil and gas industries of the world.

The company undertakes major projects to develop the entire lifecycle of oil and gas reservoirs and provides and integrates products and services, starting with exploration and development, moving through production, operations, maintenance, conversion and refining, to infrastructure and abandonment.

Halliburton employs 100,000 people in over 120 countries.

South Pars, which is believed to contain the world's largest oil reserves, is shared by Iran and Qatar. It is estimated to hold almost 14.2 tcm of reserves -- equal to seven percent of the world's reserves and 36.8 percent of Iranian reserves.

Development of South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf has been divided to 25 phases.

Iran has the world's second largest proven gas reserves after Russia.