Gasprom announced this week a major partnership with aran to invest as much as forty billion with e b dollars, in building new oil wells. The thing to watch for would be russia getting friendly with other producers. Venezuela's political situation is more complex than a ran. They're not as obvious or as easy of a country to make an ally of russia's. But boy, they've got the reserves. It seems to me that it is a long term agenta and that it involves controlling energy producing resources around the globe, not just in russia.