Mature Region, Youthful Potential: Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Appalachian and Illinois Basins (2005). This visionary report, published in March 2006 by the IOGCC Appalachian and Illinois Basin Directors in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and National Energy Technology Laboratory, provides an assessment of the potential of the nation's "most drilled but least explored" basins and makes recommendations for rejuvenating the basins. The Directors recommend that five prerequisites be addressed through collaborative basin-wide strategies, driven by public-private partnerships as well as state governments, to bring more of the region's vital oil and natural gas resources to market.

Prerequisite 1: Technology progress -- Increased development and application of advanced technology will be essential to meet the challenges of producing unconventional resources.

Prerequisite 2: Access to Resources -- Obtaining access to oil and natural gas resources can be complex, involving the interests of private land and royalty owners, ambiguous mineral rights, and competing land uses.

Prerequisite 3: Infrastructure Expansion -- Not all of the resource potential in the basins have access to existing infrastructure, either because the resource exists far from a peipleine or storage point or, more often, because nearby pipelines and storage fields are already operating at near full capacity.

Prerequisite 4: Access to High-quality Data -- Access to high-quality data about the extent, maturity, and diversity of oil and natural gas resources and about production histories of existing fields is invaluable to potential developers and other stakeholders.

Prerequisite 5: Environmental Stewardship -- ensuring adequate supplies of energy to support economic growth and to meet consumer demand must be accomplished while protecting the environment. Industry, government, and the public all have roles in environmental stewardship.