IFN The Australian-Anglo BHP Billiton Group has won a role in reconstructing Iran's oil and gas industry.

Although the company declined to confirm an impending deal, BHP is expected to sign a multi-million-dollar contract with Iran by 21 July 2001, to expand two oil projects in the southern country.

Meanwhile, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh stated that BHP in partnership with Iran's state-owned Petro Iran Company had won the right to triple output from the offshore Forouzan and Esfandiar fields.

With foreign companies banned from investing in Iran's rich energy sector, the country has devised a unique buyback investment system to raise funds to upgrade aging oil projects, develop new fields and rebuild others devastated during the 1980-1989 Iran-Iraq war.

The BHP investment, together with Italy's ENI will further undermine U.S. sanctions on Iranian investment imposed for five years. Zangeneh noted that U.S.'s efforts to discourage foreign investors from Iran's oil sector have failed to blunt the appetite of international firms.

The Forouzan-Esfandiar development is part of Iran's commitment to double its oil production capacity from about 3.6 million barrels a day over the next five years.