The Oil Program began to focus on seismic technology in the late 1980s. The Oil Program had conducted a major demonstration program beginning in the mid-1970's to develop and demonstrate enhanced oil recovery to recover more of the oil left after conventional and waterflood recovery. Twenty-seven projects in this demonstration program were high-risk but that had an excellent benefit potential if the process was successful. Post mortems of many of the unsuccessful projects highlighted the primary reason for failure was a lack of reservoir characterization. The DOEIFE then began the process to identify those reservoir characterization technologies that were needed to reduce risk and enhance success of enhanced oil recovery technologies.