Petrol price is driving people to service stations that offer discounts or savings schemes - and more commuters are taking public transport.

The high New Zealand dollar is insulating this country from rising crude oil prices that have spurred fears for the global economic recovery.

Heavy fighting was continuing around Iraq's main oil refinery in the city of Baiji, 400km north of Baghdad, where Islamists first tried to gain control last week.

Drilling has resumed off the Taranaki coast after the joint-venture partners in the Oi prospect had to abandon a well that hit trouble amid escalating costs.

Escalating violence in Iraq threatens to unleash an oil price spike that would put an end to the greatest period of price stability for nearly half a century, BP's chief economist has warned.

Liam Dann asks, "What sort of economic fallout can we expect if Baghdad falls? It is a question that has carried serious geopolitical weight for thousands of years."

Escalating violence in Iraq has spooked world sharemarkets and pushed up oil to its highest price in nine months.

Germany has rejected genetically modified crops, nuclear power and magnetic levitation trains. Now, the country is adding fracking to the list of innovations it's wary of.

Plans by Norwegian oil giant Statoil to explore off the Northland coast are moving closer with the visit of a top executive to the area this week.

China has signed a long-awaited deal for Russian natural gas, giving China a new energy source and Russia a diplomatic boost.

China is stockpiling oil for its strategic petroleum reserve at a record pace, intervening on a scale large enough to send a powerful pulse through the world crude market.

A hopelessly one-sided conflict will be renewed in Ruakaka, Northland, on Thursday.

Cheniere Energy's Charif Souki emerged as the highest paid US executive in 2013, receiving $142 million.

Last week, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell was visiting Putin's residence, saying, "We are very keen to grow our position in the Russian Federation."

Prime Minister John Key has defended new oil and gas exploration permits in a major conservation park, saying it is not a National Park and mining already takes place there.

Net oil imports to the US could fall to zero by 2037 because of robust production in areas including North Dakota and Texas's Eagle Ford formation.

Z Energy's boss says petrol consumption is falling in relation to increasing availability of broadband, which means people aren't popping in their cars for visits anymore.

The fog was just beginning to lift on the Houston Ship Channel on March 22 as a bulk carrier and a fuel barge found themselves on a crash course.

In 1945 Jan Arps published a formula, which has become one of the most widely used measures, to predict how much crude oil a well will produce.

The government has opened eight new areas for oil and gas exploration in its 2014 Block Offer, unveiled by Energy Minister Simon Bridges.

An attempt to have the Court of Appeal order the liquidation of Greymouth Petroleum was described by one of the judges hearing the appeal as a tactic to "extort."

A long-running and acrimonious dispute between two rich-lister shareholders of Greymouth Petroleum and their former colleague at the oil and gas company is heading back to court.

Oil company Anadarko won't confirm claims its exploration off the Otago coast has been unsuccessful.

Boart Longyear has posted a steep loss and says it will review its operations after having slashed almost 3500 jobs in the past year.

Australian-listed Origin Energy is bullish on the potential of exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Caraval prospect off the coast of Oamaru.

Campaigners are out to hit the fossil fuel industry where it hurts, by making it an unacceptable place to invest. Peter Huck reports

In the socialist state of Venezuela that is home to the world's largest oil and gas reserves, petrol is cheaper than water. But not for much longer.

United States oil company Anadarko says its first New Zealand deep sea exploration well failed to find commercial quantities of oil or natural gas.

American oil company Anadarko says its maiden New Zealand deep sea exploration well failed to find commercial quantities of oil or natural gas.