Refining: Domestic processing capacity is rising quickly - FT.com

Immaculately dressed with neatly cropped hair, Baz Karim gestures to the rows of vehicles lining up in the loading bay outside the Erbil refinery. More than 200 trucks pass through every day, picking up oil products such as fuel oil and benzene, before delivering them to cement and steel factories, and distribution networks around the region.

The Erbil refinery, the fourth largest in Iraq and the largest private sector one, is a shiny new symbol of private, local investment in Kurdistan – and of the region’s ambitions.

It is part of the Kar Group that Mr Karim founded in 1999, a services company for the oil and gas industry. The company started in fuel trading during the period of United Nations sanctions on Iraq, before the US-led invasion in 2003, supplying fuels funded by non-governmental organisations to the rural poor in Kurdistan.

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