Nearly all categories of "sensitive US economic information" are likely to be targeted, the report says. But energy and natural resources are a particular focus. These include secret operations and project information of US and other international oil and petrochemical companies. With commodity prices surging until recently, nations are anxious to find out all they can about what resources are available – and the latest technologies for extracting them.
Business Wire/File
ExxonMobil drilled the world's longest offshore horizontal-reach well in the Santa Ynez Unit off the coast of California (pictured here in 2010). Technologies such as extended-reach drilling help to produce more domestic supplies of oil – and of our particular interest to foreign spies.