NEW YORK, Oct 9: Major American oil companies and a Texas oil investor benefited from the United Nations oil-for-food programme for Iraq according to a report prepared by the chief arms inspector for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The programme is now under investigation by a panel appointed by the UN Secretary General to look into charges of kickbacks and corruption in the programme, which started in 1996 to help the Iraq people struggling under the stringent Security Council's mandated sanctions.

In a report on Saturday the New York Times said that the 918-page report says that four American oil companies - Chevron, Mobil, Texaco and Bay Oil - and three individuals including Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. of Houston were given vouchers and got 111 million barrels of oil between 1996 to 2003. The vouchers allowed them to profit by selling the oil or the right to trade it.

The other individuals, whose names appeared on a secret list maintained by the former Iraqi government, were Samir Vincent of Annandale, Va., and Shakir al-Khafaji of West Bloomfield, Mich., according to the report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer.

The fact that these companies and individuals received oil from Iraq does not mean they did anything illegal, experts on the programme said. Such allocations may have been proper if the individuals and companies received appropriate UN approval.

However, the NYT said that Tony Fratto, a Treasury Department spokesman, said United States sanctions on Iraq had prohibited American companies and individuals from interacting directly with Iraqi officials. But the oil dealers were permitted to get special authorization from the federal government to bid on United Nations contracts under the oil-for-food programme. He told the paper that the agency was "actively investigating" whether the American entities and people circumvented that requirement.

In interviews with the Times on Friday, spokesmen for the oil companies and for the El Paso Corporation, which assumed control of the assets of a company, Coastal Corporation, once run by Mr Wyatt, told the paper "the transactions had been legal. But each confirmed that they had received subpoenas from a federal grand jury in New York, which is investigating "transactions in oil of Iraqi origin" as part of the oil-for-food programme, according to a federal financial filing by El Paso."

The largest of the allocations went to Mr Wyatt, who the list said had received allocations totalling 74 million barrels. At the profit rates of 15 cents to 85 cents per barrel that were reported in the arms inspector's study, he could have earned $23 million.

The names of the American companies and citizens who benefited from the vouchers were not included in the published report prepared by the Iraq Survey Group that was released on Wednesday by the CIA, since the names of American individuals cannot be publicly disclosed under privacy laws. But the names were contained in the copies given to the White House and to several Congressional committees, the Times said.

Reid Morden, the staff director of the Independent Inquiry Committee, the United Nations-appointed panel headed by the former United States Federal Reserve chairman, Paul A. Volcker, told the paper his committee too was "reviewing" the new report "to see if it helps us with our investigation."