Another factor may have been economic and strategic in nature: Moscow is angling to participate in and dominate the potentially enormously lucrative oil exploitation deal Western companies have recently struck with Azerbaijan.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

Companies based on oil and gas exploitation, mining and agribusiness take basic materials from the African continent and distribute them to international markets.

FORBES: Microsoft's 4Afrika Initiative is Good Business

LUKoil and Gazprom are increasingly replacing American oil companies in the exploitation of the Orinoco Basin.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Russia extends a helping hand to Chavez

The fiscal regime in Ireland for oil and gas exploration and exploitation is probably one of the more attractive fiscal regimes in the world.

BBC: Irish oil rig, Barryroe

The Republicans say he is blocking the exploitation of the country's energy resources, so he promised more exploitation of offshore oil and gas and called for new tax credits for clean energy.

ECONOMIST: Lexington

Having managed her state's department responsible for oil and gas exploration and exploitation, having negotiated a long-delayed natural gas pipeline through Canada to the Lower 48 and having been married for nearly two decades to a blue-collar worker in Alaska's North Slope oil fields, she knows more about the subject than all three of the others on the two parties' tickets put together.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Sarah Palin's experience

Its oil reserves are ripe for further exploitation.

BBC: Sudan profile

The latest memorandum of understanding, signed by Tehran and CNOOC, China's biggest offshore oil producer, would involve the exploitation of the North Pars fields and the construction of Iranian liquefied natural gas facilities, whose products would then be exported to China.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Securing America's energy needs

Unconventional sources of oil and gas that are set for further exploitation include Canada's tar sands, shale and coal-bed methane deposits around the world.

ECONOMIST: Drilling on Wall Street | The

Investment in infrastructure would be key to the continued success of the oil and gas sectors in East Africa and the exploitation of the huge coal deposits in Mozambique.

BBC: World Bank: Africa's economic growth to outpace average

That day will mark a new crest in the rising tide of public demand for action, beginning with a definitive rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline that would enable the exploitation and export of Canada's tar sands oil.

CNN: Obama, turn climate 'priority' into leadership

Oil-soaked countries, he believes, will not open up their reserves for exploitation just to make life easier for companies like his.

ECONOMIST: Face value