Washington ? A firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney has gone from fixing Iraq’s oil wells to actually running them, parlaying a no-bid federal contract into an increasingly lucrative deal to supply Iraq’s emergency energy needs.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday disclosed this wider role for a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., Cheney’s old firm. This prompted criticism from some congressional critics who were under the impression that the company’s job would be limited to putting out fires and repairing damage to Iraq’s rich petroleum fields.

The agency said the subsidiary, KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root), had actually been authorized under the original contract to operate and distribute oil produced in Iraq, but the Corps of Engineers played down that aspect of the deal in its initial communications with Congress and the media.

For pumping oil from the country’s oil fields and also importing gasoline and propane from Turkey and other countries, Halliburton will receive $24 million, raising to $76.8 million the amount it has received since being awarded the contract in March, said Scott Saunders, a spokesman for the Corps of Engineers.

Saunders said that the Halliburton subsidiary now is pumping about 125,000 barrels of oil a day, far short of the demand that is expected to reach 400,000 barrels a day this summer.

Asked whether Cheney had anything to do with the awarding of the Halliburton no-bid contract, his press secretary, Jennifer Millerwise, said, “Nope.” Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall also said Cheney played no role.