The original goal of the U.S. Department of Energy's research program in low-permeability gas reservoirs was to expand the level of industry development and production efficiency from these reservoirs in the U.S. From the beginning, natural fractures were felt to be the key to better production from these extensive reservoirs, which are concentrated heavily but not exclusively in the Rocky Mountain region. The need for a Federal role in gaining access to this resource has been apparent for some time. By the year 2015 DOE?s Energy Information Agency (1998) expects a declining conventional national gas supply of approximately 20 TCF/Year and a steady 5 TCF/Year gas import volume. In order to meet demand at that time, low-permeability resources will be required to supply up to 10 TCF/Year. The first step in DOE?s program at it's inception in the early 1980's was to better characterize the geology of key Rocky Mountain Basins and refine the low-permeability resource and reserve numbers via our interagency agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey, the Scotia Group and others. While this effort still continues to this point in time, we initiated a companion effort to search for geophysical and other geosciences methodologies that could aid in high-grading the location of natural fracture sweet-spots in the early 1990's. The summaries and synthesis of six of these studies are compiled on the CD-ROM entitled ?Detection and Analysis of Naturally Fractured Gas Reservoirs,? and is available for free distribution to attendees of this workshop. The more recent emphasis of our program has shifted somewhat toward that of participating in cooperative field verification opportunities to test our findings with companies such as Barrett Resources in the Piceance Basin, Louisiana Land and Exploration in the Wind River Basin and Union Pacific Resources in the Greater Green River Basin. You will have an opportunity to hear about the results of these efforts during the workshop, as well as a discussion of the deep Austin Chalk formation, and it's potential for future study as a low-permeability gas resource. We at DOE and the Federal Energy Technology Center want to express our appreciation to our co-hosts: Union Pacific Resources, Advanced Resources International, and Western Geophysical as well as Burlington Resources for assisting in the conduct of this workshop. We also invite your participation in round-table discussions at the conclusion of our structured presentations and hope that you will contribute your comments and thoughts to us at that time.