[topher]

Russia has tried very creative things to help with increasing their production capacity.

At one time, because the field had very heavy oil, they used a NUCLEAR BOMB to see if the field would flow better.

For some reason setting off a nuclear bomb underground did not help the flow/production of oil in this field...

[Southack]

Actually, the U.S. also set off 3 nuclear bombs to increase gas production. It worked to some degree, but the resulting gas was radioactive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare