Crude oil is the world's most actively traded physical commodity. The Exchange's standard-sized light sweet crude oil futures contract is the world's highest volume futures contract based on an underlying physical commodity and is used as a pricing benchmark worldwide. The delivery point of the contract is Cushing, Oklahoma, the nucleus of U.S. cash market crude oil trading, which is accessible to the world market by two major interstate petroleum pipeline systems. The light sweet crude oil futures contract provides for delivery of several grades of domestic and internationally traded foreign crudes which makes it an excellent hedging and trading instrument for the international oil industry. The futures contract is the most liquid trading instrument for crude oil, with daily trading volume averaging the equivalent of 230 million barrels of crude, approximately three times physical daily output.