The struggle for Iraq’s oil flares up as Kurds open doors to foreign investors

At the end of a rough dirt track, on a sun-baked hillock once the domain of scorpions and snakes, squats an odd settlement of caravans, generators and drilling rigs that is at the heart of the battle for Iraq’s oil.
“Welcome to Texas, Kurdistan,” said Karim Ali, as his taxi bounced to the gates of the Taq Taq oilfields, on the undulating plains of Koi Sanjaq, some 80 miles south-east of Irbil. “Soon we’ll all have big hats and cigars like them,” he said, nodding at a group of oil workers passing by on a pickup truck.

Guardian