AbstractThe current status of nuclear‐explosive fracturing to improve gas production from tight formations andin situcombustion to enhance oil recovery from existing reservoirs are assessed.The current status of projects Gasbuggy, Rulison and Rio Blanco are presented, and it is pointed out that production predictions were considerably overestimated. Several hypotheses to account for this are presented, but the most important seems to be overstimated formation permeability. the limitations of the current technology are discussed, and the greatest obstacle to progress is recognised as public nonacceptability of the technique.The basic processes ofin situcombusion for enhanced oil recovery are presented together with a comparison of the recovery efficiency with those of other processes. It is shown that the method offers the highest percentage of oil recovery in heavy oil prospects of any thermal recovery methods proposed so far. However, the method is expensive and highly complex, but it is likely that it is the most widely applicable and that important improvements will be made in the next decad
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