Originally Posted by Emmerich

Don't know the depths but I would guess less than 10,000 feet. You are right, they could do an underground blast in one of their wells designed for that purpose. It won't contaminate the reservoir for any appreciable area. Its not just a big pool down there. And there are no fumes. The only way to get oil to burn in the ground is to inject air into a well. This is called a fireflood. Its been tried a few times for secondary recovery purposes, but rarely works. It is basically an on or off deal, can't be controlled, and has a tendency to melt the tubulars in the wells.