Seth Perlman / AP

Lucy Childers, 6, plays on the rock formations at Ferne Clyffe State Park in Goreville, Ill.

By Tammy Webber, The Associated Press

VIENNA, Ill. — This is the Illinois that many people never see — the sparsely populated southern tip where flat farmland gives way to rolling hills, rocky outcrops, thick forests and cypress swamps.

Blacktopped county roads wend through no-stoplight towns. Locals speak in soft drawls and talk of generations who've lived on the same land or in the same villages. The remote and rugged Shawnee National Forest attracts hikers, campers and horseback riders, and offers a stark contrast to the rest of a state that largely has been plowed, paved or suburbanized.

But many here are beginning to brace for change as the Illinois Legislature considers regulations that could set off a rush among energy companies to drill deep in the southern Illinois bedrock for oil and natural gas. The crews would be using a process known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," that has transformed the landscape in places like North Dakota and Pennsylvania.

Read the full story.

Seth Perlman / AP

Majestic rock formations attract outdoor enthusiasts, tourists, climbers and backpackers at Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area near Herod, Ill.

Seth Perlman / AP

Cypress trees, many of which are more than 1,000-years-old and exceed 40 feet in circumference, stand in the Cache River State Natural Area near Belknap, Ill.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A passenger speedboat churns up the water, while in the background an illegal oil refinery is left burning after an earlier military chase, in a windy creek near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Dec. 6, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A man works at an illegal oil refinery site near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A locally made boat containing crude oil is maneuvered through a creek near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Dec. 6, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A worker pours crude oil into a locally made burner using a funnel at an illegal oil refinery site near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 25, 2012.

By Akintunde Akinleye, Reuters

Here and there on the banks, people coated in oil wade through greasy mud in patches of landscape blackened and stripped of the thick vegetation that makes Nigeria's oil-producing delta so hard to police. Plumes of grey or yellow smoke fill the air as men who will give only their first names go to work in an illegal industry that the government says lifts a fifth of Nigeria's output of two million barrels a day.

Oil 'bunkering' -- hacking into pipelines to steal crude then refining it or selling it abroad -- has become a major cost to Nigeria's treasury, which depends on oil for 80 percent of its earnings.

Major General Johnson Ochoga, who leads a military campaign against bunkering that was stepped up last year under orders from President Goodluck Jonathan, told Reuters nearly 2,000 suspects had been arrested and 4,000 refineries, 30,000 drums of products and hundreds of bunkering boats destroyed in 2012.

Yet the complicity of security officials and politicians who profit from the practice, and the lack of alternatives for those who undertake it, cast doubt on the likelihood of success.

Read the full story.

Editor's note: Reuters made these pictures available to NBC News on Jan. 15.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A warning sign belonging to the company Royal Dutch Shell is seen along the Nembe Creek in Bayelsa on Dec. 2, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A man named Godswill works at an illegal oil refinery site, where steam rises from pipes carrying refined oil from a burner into broken containers, near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A man named Godswill collects crude oil from a mini storage unit filled with oil, which is waiting to be refined at an illegal refinery site near the Nun River in Bayelsa on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

Ebiowei, 48, pours water to reduce the intensity of the fire in a locally-made burner at an illegal oil refinery site near the Nun River on Nov. 27, 2012.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

A closed fuel station is seen in the Ahoada community near Nigeria's oil hub city of Port Harcourt on Dec. 6, 2012.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Extremes of wealth and poverty revealed in photos of Nigerian oil industry
• Pipeline explosion kills at least 3 in Nigeria
• Wicked wicker car wows in Nigeria
• Smoldering scene in Lagos, Nigeria after plane crash
• Secret prison in the jungle on Nigerian island
• Thousands of Nigerians protest fuel prices, as government fears 'anarchy'

Schalk Van Zuydam / AP

An African penguin is washed with a toothbrush by staff at the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) after it was found covered in oil on Robben Island near Cape Town, South Africa, Sept. 5.

Schalk Van Zuydam / AP

An African penguin is washed by staff at the SANCCOB.

Approximately 55 African penguins that were found covered in oil were being cleaned by staff from the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds on Wednesday. The penguins, which were found on Robben Island near Cape Town, South Africa, will be released into the wild after cleaning. The oil leaked from the Turkish stricken bulk carrier Seli One, according to the Associated Press. According to the South African Broadcasting Corporation,

The Seli One was hit by a storm at Dolphin Beach on Friday, which resulted in a wreckage that leaked the oil. More than a kilometer of the coastline was polluted and the run-off streaks are continuing to spread. The oil is not expected to move further north, but the City of Cape Town has still appealed to the Transport Department to remove the Seli One from the coastline. Continue reading.

Schalk Van Zuydam / AP

An African penguin is washed by staff at SANCCOB.

Schalk Van Zuydam / AP

An African penguin drys under a warm light after being washed by staff at SANCCOB.

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Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

BP oil installations seen from the air.

Photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen traveled from the southern tip of South America to the far reaches of Alaska on the North American continent to explore migration in the Americas. What he found both supported and defied stereotypes, which he reported on a website and an app for iPad called Via Panam.

Deadhorse, Alaska, lies on what its residents call “The Slope,” the coastal plain along the Arctic Ocean formally known as the North Slope. For a town with a total population (including part-timers) of only a few thousand, it has a very lively airport. Several large planes fly to and from Fairbanks and other Alaskan cities daily. Formally, Deadhorse is not a municipality, but an industrial zone. Its facilities and security are provided by privately owned businesses, not the government.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Arrival of workers at Deadhorse airport.

Deadhorse lies at the end of the Pan American Highway, in the extreme north of Alaska. The place owes its existence to the oil that has been extracted from the ground around since the 1970s - generally by international companies that lease the land from the indigenous peoples. Almost all of the residents of Deadhorse are migrants from “the Lower 48” (the contiguous  United States) or from Latin America.

At more than 586,000 square miles, Alaska is by far the largest state in the United States. It is also the least densely populated. Fairbanks, the second-largest city in the state after Anchorage, lies in the middle of the state. The Dalton Highway runs north from there, ending at Deadhorse and the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay, on the Arctic Ocean. The road was built in 1974, to support the construction and maintenance of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. About 250 semitrailers travel the road daily to supply the oil businesses around Prudhoe Bay.

The work sites of the oil companies are mostly leased from the Iñupiat, the indigenous people of Alaska’s Northwest Arctic. The Iñupiat receive a considerable income from the leases, but not everyone is happy with the oil extraction. One Iñupiat-owned company, called NANA, is active in mining, the hotel sector, the oil industry, tourism, catering and security services. The profits go to projects for the 12,500 members of the Inupiat community.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Paulette McNab, 42, is from Indiana. When she was 20 years old she came with her father to Wasilla, Alaska and in 2008 she came to Deadhorse. 'I work as a housekeeper at the Prudhoe Bay hotel, where many workers stay. The people are really nice here and I love my work. I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Every month I get two weeks off and I go back to Wasilla where my daughter lives.'

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs nearly 800 miles, making it one of the longest in the world. It was built between 1974 and 1977, just after the 1973 oil crisis. There was considerable protest against its construction from environmental groups and native peoples, on whose territory the oil extraction takes place. Every day 700,000 barrels of crude oil are pumped through this pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the southern port city of Valdez, just east of Anchorage. Oil is by far the largest source of income for Alaska.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

A tanning saloon at the Prudhoe Bay hotel which houses hundreds of migrant workers who work in the oil (related) industry.

Hundreds of migrant workers in the oil sector live at the Prudhoe Bay Hotel. They drive to their jobs daily at oil rigs or businesses connected with the oil industry. Life in Deadhorse consists of working hard, often four weeks on and two weeks off. There is no time for pleasure. Moreover, there is hardly any entertainment, and alcohol is banned.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Cameron Milroy, 25, was born in Kotzebue on the west coast of Alaska. His mother is native, his father Scottish - Irish. He grew up with his father in Oregon. When Cameron was 20 years he came back to Alaska and got a job with Nanan (a native oil company) in Deadhorse. 'I started as a cleaner, but now I am a 'level 1' truck driver. I enjoy the climate here.'

Slideshow: Migration in the Americas

K. van Lohuizen / NOOR

From Colombians fleeing war to North Americans retirees moving to Nicaragua, a photographer's journey from Chile to Alaska explores both the expected and unexpected patterns of migration in the Americas

Launch slideshow

Experience the entire journey, from Chile to Alaska, by exploring the slideshow at right, the Via Panam website or by downloading the app for iPad.

More Photoblogs from the Migration in the Americas series: 
Mom works in US while family stays in El Salvador
US retirees flock to Nicaragua
On the run from water in Panama
Bolivia hopes for windfall from producing lithium

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Jonathan Sunderman / US Navy via Reuters

Guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) is seen after a collision with the bulk oil tanker M/V Otowasan in the Strait of Hormuz, Aug. 12. No one was hurt and shipping traffic in the waterway, through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil exports pass, was not affected, officials said.

The collision nevertheless left a gaping hole in the starboard side of USS Porter, a guided-missile destroyer, but no one was injured on either vessel, the U.S. Navy said in a statement. The collision with the Panamanian-flagged bulk oil tanker M/V Otowasan occurred at approximately 1 a.m. local time. 

The cause of the incident is under investigation, the Navy said, adding that there were no reports of spills or leakages from either the USS Porter or the Otowasan. 

Reported by NBC News wire services

Read the full story.

Jonathan Sunderman / US Navy via Reuters

Fareed Khan / AP

Oil tankers, which were used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan, are parked in a compound in Karachi, Pakistan on Thursday.

Fareed Khan / AP

Oil tankers, which were used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan, are parked in Karachi on Wednesday.

Reuters reports that Pakistan has kept supply routes to NATO troops in Afghanistan closed for six months:

The United States has been pushing Pakistan to re-open supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan in difficult talks that show no signs of a breakthrough any time soon.

Pakistan closed the routes, seen as vital to the planned withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan before the end of 2014, in protest against last November's killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a NATO air attack along the Afghan border.

Read more...

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Fareed Khan / AP

A Pakistani man selling cold drinks pushes his bicycle between oil tankers, which were used to transport NATO fuel supplies to Afghanistan, in a compound in Karachi.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Muhammed Muheisen / AP

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

Launch slideshow

Natacha Pisarenko / AP

Government supporters celebrate outside the Congress in Buenos Aires on May 3, 2012 after Argentina's takeover of its formerly state-owned energy company won approval from legislators.

Ivan Fernandez / EPA

Deputies and spectators attending the session of Congress celebrate the final approval of the proposal of creating a bill to expropriate the oil company.

Reuters reports — Argentina's Congress nationalized the country's biggest oil company, YPF, by an overwhelming lower house vote on Thursday that underscored broad popular support for a measure that threatens to scare off foreign investment. 

"It's a good move for the country because if the government does not control strategic resources such as oil, it loses power," said financial analyst Leonardo Rodriguez, 32, as he sipped a latté in the well-heeled Buenos Aires neighborhood of Puerto Madero.

"But the approach used in taking over the company, without negotiating, was too jarring and authoritarian," Rodriguez said. "There could be serious consequences. I mean, who wants to invest in a country where the government expropriates private property from one day to the next?" Read the full story.

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Korea Coast Guard via Reuters

Damage is seen on the Doola 3, an oil tanker carrying petroleum, after it exploded in waters off South Korea's western port city of Incheon Jan. 15.

According to the Korea Herald:

Doola Shipping, which operates the ship, said the explosion seems to have taken place while gas was being drained from the oil tank. "The vessel usually transports diesel, but this time it carried gasoline. We are now examining whether it had any relation to the explosion," a company official said.

The explosion was not caused by any external shock, Coast Guard officials said, adding it suddenly occurred when some crew members were cleaning the oil tank on the deck. They will request a forensic test for the case, the officials said.

Full story: Freight vessel explosion in West Sea kills 5 crewmen

Korea Coast Guard via Reuters

Boats of the South Korean Coast Guard patrol near the damaged Doola 3, center, an oil tanker carrying petroleum, after it exploded in waters off South Korea's western port city of Incheon Jan. 15. Five crew members were killed and six others are missing after the explosion of the 4,191-tonne freight ship, which had been carrying 16 crewmen -- 11 Koreans and 5 Myanmarese -- on board, in waters north of Jawol Island near Incheon, according to the coast guard.

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