Iran signed a 2 billion US dollars gas deal with Crescent Petroleum of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the English-language Press TV reported on Saturday.

According to the 25-year gas deal signed on Friday, Iran will export natural gas from the country's Salman field to UAE, said the TV report.

The agreed price of natural gas is reportedly four times the price Crescent Petroleum pays for importing gas from Qatar and more than five times the average weighted price for gas in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the report.

Iran, which has the world's second largest natural gas reserve after Russia, has built a 174-mile undersea pipeline linking Iran' s Salman offshore gas field to Crescent's gas-processing facilities.

The UAE is the fourth largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) but it is in need of clean energy imports to fuel its rapid industrial growth.

Despite a recent decline in world oil prices, gas prices in the Gulf states, particularly in the UAE are on the rise.

"Natural gas is a fuel of choice for clean and efficient power generation," Crescent's executive director Majid Jafar was quoted as saying.

(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2008)