Anyone who has any doubt about the dangers of drilling for hydrocarbons should carefully look at the picture on the left.

The picture was taken in 1951 and shows Rig 20 at Naft Safid in Iran.

 The crew had been on a fishing (removing stuck piping) job. They were pulling out the fishing tool with a length of drilling pipe attached when mud and gas came roaring and surging up the well and blew violently out.

The driller and crew leaped and crawled for their lives. They were barely clear when when the gas, rushing up the 8 inch hole at 2500 lb. per square inch, suddenly ignited into a flame more than 1000 feet high.

What the photograph shows is the freeing of the well head and shows half-a-mile of steel piping shooting 2000ft into the air. Some piping can be seen still emerging from the hole.

The size of the flame can be gauged by comparing it with the size of the buildings below the flame.

In fifty years of drilling in Persia (Iran) it was the company's first oilwell fire. It was also the biggest and most spectacular.