Kurdistan's Oil Ambitions
The promise of the region’s oil fields isn’t without political complications
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Kurdistan, the self-governing region of northern Iraq, is poised to realize a gusher in revenue from its oil fields. Estimated reserves of about 45 billion barrels of crude have piqued the interest of several of the world’s largest oil companies. Although getting crude out of the country has until now been a challenge, the opening of a pipeline into Turkey at the start of 2014 will make it significantly easier to get the oil to markets. “We’re looking at multibillion barrels,” says Dougie Youngson, an analyst at VSA Capital in London. “The operators are sitting on huge resources that they want to start commercializing.”