In August, 1990, Robert H. Gentile, The DOE's Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, appointed a Task Force, comprising technical and management expertise, to put into place the Department's new Oil Research Program Implementation Plan. This new plan grew out of DOE's continuing effort to formulate a National Energy Strategy. Research directed toward near- and mid-term results has been added to the previous program emphasis on long-term, high-risk research, in order to address the needs of current conditions in the petroleum industry. The 1986 price collapse, falling domestic production, and increased well abandonments that threaten future access to reservoirs containing a vast potential of recoverable oil were the major factors that led to this new direction.