Much of Venezuela's oil is very dense, and pumping it requires injecting steam into the ground, Mr. Miller said.

One well is used to inject steam, which reduces the viscosity of the bitumen.

For home bakers, an option recently offered on the $3,600 Russell Range can be programmed to inject steam into the oven at intervals, like a professional bakery oven.

Soil steam sterilization involves injecting steam into contaminated soil in order to kill subterranean plant parts.

The CSS method has the advantage that recovery factors are around 20 to 25% and the disadvantage that the cost to inject steam is high.

Usually, the hammer is made to fall faster by injecting steam into the upper part of the cylinder.

In Venezuela's case, this often means firing up equipment that injects steam into one end of an oilfield, pushing the oil toward wells at the opposite end.

This can involve hydraulic fracturing, to inject water or steam into the well.

The Kern River oil field, discovered in 1899, was revived when Chevron engineers here started injecting high-pressured steam to pump out more oil.

Enhanced Recovery Wells inject brine, water, steam, polymers, or carbon dioxide into oil-bearing formations to recover residual oil and-in some limited applications-natural gas.