Organized by the IFP in association with its Beicip-Franlab subsidiary, this conference involved specialists from Agip, BP Amoco, Elf, Geoservices, Statoil, and TotalFina. To accelerate the development of oil fields, it is vital to minimise the time between the discovery of a field and when it goes into production. This means that new strategies for the development of oil fields must be implemented, including the establishment of far closer ties with the reserve assessment stage. This approach,