Pipeline operators commonly hedge the value of the crude oil flowing through their pipelines.
Would Saudi Arabia and others be prepared to keep their oil flowing if they did?
Thousands of barrels of thick, black oil flowing like a river through a suburban Arkansas community.
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Another former exec David Rainey has been charged with concealing from Congress the amount of oil flowing from the Macondo well.
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Aron was Semgroup's biggest counterparty, trading both physical oil flowing through pipelines and paper oil, in the form of options and futures.
The amount of oil flowing out of the Bakken has soared from 100, 000 bpd in 2006 to more than 550, 000 bpd now.
Crude from the tar sands and other unconventional sources could keep oil flowing well into the middle of the century, and perhaps beyond.
The oil flowing into Cushing contributed to a crude oil bottleneck there, and was one of the reasons that the Brent-WTI differential developed.
But just as WTI has frailties to reduce bottlenecks to keep oil flowing internationally, the North Sea is splintered with creaking and aging infrastructure.
But some oil executives think it is different, because the current boom has been sparked by technological advances they say will keep the oil flowing.
However it is the commitment to get the oil flowing again which will attract the most attention, says the BBC's former Khartoum correspondent, James Copnall.
Getting the oil flowing would be good for everyone.
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These oil fields have no oil coming out of them, but they have refineries and everything sitting on top of them so that it only takes a flip of a switch to get the oil flowing.
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The number of service unit operators, who keep the oil flowing from wells and remove obstructions such as stuck pipes and casings, is up by a fifth, to 30, 440 from 25, 360 a year earlier, putting them at number three on our list behind aircraft assembly workers.
Sniffing opportunity, even before the oil starts flowing and the rubies glisten, the world has started to arrive in Greenland.
But what is clear is that the battle to stop the oil from flowing into the Gulf is just about over.
Oil started flowing again this month after both sides struck a deal in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in March, helping to ease tensions.
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Oil continued flowing at the rate of about 5, 000 barrels per day into the Gulf of Mexico on May 3, following the April 20 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig south of the Mississippi Delta that caused it to sink and left its well leaking oil.
Those estimates come while the oil is still flowing, with BP still fumbling for a plug.
With two-thirds of the Gulf's oil exports already flowing to Asia, America will face more such challenges.
But today, the two countries reached a compromise that paves the way for the oil to resume flowing.
Ali Khadr, the World Bank's Chad director, said oil would begin flowing from the country's southern Doba oilfield in July 2003.
As a result many people in both Sudans will wait for the oil to start flowing before they raise their hopes too much.
That is the geo-strategic dream which Turkey cherishes - that it will be the main transit route for oil and gas flowing from the Caspian and central Asia to world markets.
The authorities reckon that the oil may be flowing at a rate of 60, 000 barrels a day far more than the company estimated, and the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez every four days.
But even more pertinent is the huge variation in their national interests, between those such as low-lying small islands that may literally cease to exist as nations as the sea level rises, and the oil-producing states of the Persian Gulf and Opec for whom the priority is to keep the oil and gas flowing.
Meanwhile, almost untouched by the war, Congo-Brazzaville's 230, 000 barrels of oil per day keep flowing from the offshore rigs.
Oil's 60% decline from its peak also suggests a large decline in the amount of petro dollars flowing to the oil producers.
These structural problems, coupled with worries about the future, mean that the riches of the oil bonanza are not flowing into more productive channels.
No oil and gas is flowing yet, but if all goes well in Iraq, Oryx states in its prospectus that it could be handling as much as 300, 000 bpd of oil within five years.
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