bobby, its stark staring bonkers alright! Nodarf.
fairenough11
7 Jan'13 - 16:46 - 249246 of 249302 3 1
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8d15816c-4929-11e2-9225-00144feab49a.html#ixzz2HJBM2zrF
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8d15816c-4929-11e2-9225-00144feab49a.html#ixzz2HJBM2zrF
Kurdistan’s vast reserves draw oil majors
By Guy Chazan in Irbil
Published: January 7 2013 16:17 | Last updated: January 7 2013 16:17
For decades, the rugged hills of northern Iraq were the sole preserve of sheep herders and the Kurdish militia known as peshmergas. Now they play host to some of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, drawn by its estimated 45bn barrels of oil.
“We are driving over huge reserves,” says Richard Lowe, drilling manager for oil explorer Gulf Keystone, as he crosses Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil-rich northern corner.
Off to the right, he says, lie Ain Sifni and Barda Rash, where the London-listed oil company Afren has made two big oil discoveries. On the left are vast unexplored fields. “That’s where ExxonMobil will be drilling,” he says.
The region’s oil is so plentiful it literally oozes out of the ground. Near Gulf Keystone’s Shaikan field – one of the world’s largest onshore oil finds of recent years – Mr Lowe points to crude oil leaking out of the limestone rock and dribbling down in thick black seeps."