In short, an Iraqi man married a Norwegian women. Their kid had cerebral palsy. They decided their son could get the best care in Norway, so moved to that country.
The man has both academic training and industrial experience with the oil industry, at a time when the Norway’s oil administration had only three officials. When al-Kasim went to the Ministry of Industry looking for a job in the oil industry, they jumped at the opportunity to tap his expertise.
He helped write the plan which puts the socialist state in control of managing the oil wealth, balanced between reply on private foreign companies and a "bloated, politicised oil sector" of only government control, quoting an excerpt from https://www.isegoria.net/2009/09/the-iraqi-who-saved-norway-... . Statoil is a Norwegian state-owned private Norwegian oil company, giving the Norwegian government deep access to the costs and profits in oil extraction.
I remember an account from the original FT story. The Norwegians told the oil companies the country would charge a super-profit tax of 40% on top of the 50% corporate rate. The companies said something like "what? That's too high!". The Norwegians replied "Since none of you walked out, I think it was too low."
He also did this in the most "by the way" way, he landed in Oslo had a few hours to kill waiting for his train connection, so he went to their office...
Fjords run deep into the country. Maritime society.
Major lumber exporter.
The UK agreed to a median line split for divvying up oil fields.
A tiny island 17km off shore gave Norway 85% of the most productive oil field in the North Sea.
Oil and gas companies operating in Norway come under the control of the government after 100 years.
A low corruption society was in place prior to the appearance of oil wealth.
The sovereign wealth fund has a strictly capped draw down to prevent politicians from looting it.