BAGHDAD, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The world's leading energy companies won rights to develop two major oil fields in Iraq at an auction on Friday.

    Royal Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas were awarded the contract to exploit the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq, one of the world's largest untapped oil fields with more than 12 billion barrels of proven reserves.

    They accepted a fee of 1.39 U.S. dollars per barrel.

Iraq's Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani delivers a speech at the second bidding round for Iraqi oil fields in Baghdad, capital of Iraq, Dec. 11, 2009. More than 40 campanies attended the bidding on Friday.

Meanwhile, a consortium led by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China's largest oil and gas producer, together with Petronas and France's Total, won the contract for the Halfaya oil field, also in the south.

    It offered a remuneration fee of 1.40 dollars per barrel in the deal for the Halfaya oil field, which has estimated reserves of 4.1 billion barrels of oil.

    A CNPC staff told Xinhua that the competition was fierce, and that the final contract is likely to be signed within a month.

    More than 40 world oil companies from 23 countries, including BP and Total, are seeking investment in 10 Iraqi oil fields over two days in Iraq's second round of bidding since 2003.

    The first auction round was held in June this year, in which the CNPC joined hands with BP to win the Rumaila oilfield service contract.

    Estimated at 115 billion barrels, Iraq holds the world's third largest proven oil reserves, only after Saudi Arabia and Iran.