A large resource of natural gas exists in low permeability reservoirs in the western United States that has not been economically producible because of low natural flow rates coupled with increasingly high drilling costs. The Western Gas Sands Project (WGSP) was created in 1977 by the Department of Energy to address this problem. Its purpose is to perform the research, development and demonstration necessary to advance the technology of stimulating natural gas production from these low permeability reservoirs to the point where commercial development by private industry will become possible.