United Arab Emirates' Crescent Petroleum expects to start importing gas from Iran's offshore Salman Field in three months, its chairman said on Thursday.

Hamid Jaafar also said that his company will not be able to take part in Iraqi oil projects as it had been black-listed by the federal government due to its involvement in the autonomous Kurdish region without approval from Baghdad.

'It's imminent. It shouldn't be more than three months,' Jaafar told Reuters when asked when he excepted exports to start.

Iran and privately-owned Crescent, based in the UAE emirate of Sharjah, have been locked in long negotiations about the price of gas exports from the Salman field to the UAE since 2006.

The UAE needs the gas to meet rapidly rising domestic demand from industry and power plants.-Reuters