Iraq/Kurdistan: How Exxon, under Rex Tillerson, Won Iraqi Oil Fields and Nearly Lost Iraq

Jan 9, 2017 | Missy Ryan and Steven Mufson, Washington Post
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When Ashti Hawrami, the oil minister from Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region, unfurled a map of untapped oil fields for a team of ExxonMobil officials in the spring of 2011, they saw possibility and profit. The minister pointed to the blocks that had already been taken by other foreign firms as Iraqi Kurdistan, long at odds with the country’s central government over oil and territory, raced to establish itself as a player on world oil markets. He also showed them the fields that were still up for grabs. Tell me what you want, and we can start negotiating, Hawrami said, according to one former Exxon official who attended the meeting.