China insisted today that it had "indisputable sovereignty" over a chain of potentially oil-rich islands in the South China Sea but also opened the door to negotiating a settlement over their ownership.

International oil companies, starved of potentially oil-rich regions to explore, are handing back huge amounts of cash to shareholders instead of drilling new fields.

Beijing recently sent warships to back its claims in the potentially oil-rich Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, more than 500 miles from China's coast.

Even Colombia, grappling with relentless guerrilla violence, has mapped out potentially oil-rich Amazonian blocks for prospecting.

In the latest step, six corporations representing Alaskan natives selected 166,000 acres in the potentially oil-rich wildlife refuge.

Officials from several companies said they were anxiously monitoring events on the potentially oil-rich archipelago, a former Portuguese colony on the Equator in the Gulf of Guinea.

There was alarm throughout Southeast Asia last year when the Chinese Navy overran a group of tiny, potentially oil-rich atolls in the South China Sea and raised the Chinese flag.

This country's reserves of bauxite, gold and diamonds - and its strategic position on the potentially oil-rich Gulf of Guinea - make it difficult for Washington to ignore.

Suriname and neighbouring Guyana have been engaged in a long-running territorial dispute over a potentially oil-rich offshore area.

Yet Turkey may well see preventing the emergence of a potentially oil-rich Kurdish political entity on its borders as worth the risk.