Flow assurance is of great interest in the oil industry. Issues of how fluid compositions are linked to properties, and how these properties impact operations of pipelines and related facilities will continue to be of interest as oils and oil mixtures from a variety of reservoirs (ranging from condensates to heavy oils) are brought to the surface under difficult conditions. Our work on Chemometrics (Energy and Fuels, 2006) demonstrated that a variety of oil properties can be predicted using a single Near Infra-Red spectrum. This technique has potential for on-line implemenation. We have an ongoing project related to precipitation of waxes and gelling of crude oils (OTC-18368), the rheology of the gels and restart options available. One of the central questions in this research is to examine the relevance of laboratory rheological measurements (yield stresses) to the field situation. Our work on wax precipitation temperatures (Petroleum Science and Technology, 2004) showed that better crude oil characterization (below) led to more accurate thermodynamic models and predictions. Since oils are complex multicomponent mixtures, wax precipitation issues are often related in the larger scheme of things to the thermodynamics of heavy molecules (Elsevier Book Chapter, 2006).