Preface: On its 80th anniversary, the National Bureau of Standards hosted a series of lectures by six distinguished speakers of national and international note who discussed the challenges facing science and technology and, thus, the Bureau in the coming years. This publication contains the texts of these presentations, along with transcripts of the question-and answer sessions following the presentations. The lecture series was organized by Dr. Donald R. Johnson of NBS with the very able assistance of Mrs. Carol Shipley in making arrangements for speakers and handling the manuscripts. The staff of the NML Text Editing Facility are acknowledged for their substantial contributions of typing and editing support.

Abstract: The symposium on Oil and Gas Supply Modeling, held at the Department of Commerce, Washington, DC (June 18-20, 1980), was funded by the Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy and co-sponsored by the National Bureau of Standards' Operations Research Division. The symposium was organized to be a forum in which the theoretical and applied state-of-the-art of oil and gas supply models could be presented and discussed. Speakers addressed the following areas: the realities of oil and gas supply, prediction of oil and gas production, problems in oil and gas modeling, resource appraisal procedures, forecasting field size and production, investment and production strategies, estimating cost and production schedules for undiscovered fields production regulations, resource data, sensitivity analysis of forecasts, econometric analysis of resource depletion, oil and gas finding rates, and various models of oil and gas supply. This volume documents the proceedings (papers and discussion) of the symposium.