ExxonMobil has won the right to develop one of the world’s most prized untapped oil reserves, in a USD 50 billion deal that will entrench the company as one of the largest players in postwar Iraq. Exxon was awarded a contract to extract oil from the West Qurna reservoir, with verified reserves of 15 billion barrels, near Basra in Iraq’s south during an extended tender process that has seen the Iraqi government partner foreign firms in a bid to get its reserves of oil out of the ground as cheaply and quickly as possible. Iraqi oil minister Hussain Shahristani said the contract stipulated a USD 25 billion investment and USD 25 billion more in operating fees.
