Before Leduc
At the end of the Second World War the outlook for the Canadian oil industry was dim. During more than 50 years of exploration, the industry had drilled about 1,000 wells at a cost of around $200 million, an enormous amount in those days. But the pickings were slim. All the industry had to show for its efforts was reserves of 250 million barrels of crude oil and six trillion cubic feet of natural gas (the latter, although a significant amount, was virtually worthless at the time because supply greatly exceeded demand). No oil field of any significance had been discovered in 10 years, and the oil from that discovery at Turner Valley, near Calgary, was fast running out. Total Canadian oil production in 1946 was around 7.2 million barrels, about a tenth of the country’s annual oil consumption. The remainder had to be imported, mainly from the United States.
Even Imperial, the country’s most active oil explorer, was growing discouraged. Its last major discovery had come in 1920, when a brilliant young geologist named Ted Link- who was later to play a major role in the Leduc discovery- had found oil at Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories. (And that discovery had been regarded as being of limited commercial value: Norman Well’s remote location just south of the Arctic Circle rendered transportation to southern markets virtually impossible at the time).
Leduc #1
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