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1947 – The Leduc Oil Discovery

Before the Leduc oil discovery in Alberta, the province had historically been focussed on agriculture. However, mineral wealth had always been known to lurk below the fields: early fur traders described oil bubbling out of the ground or seeping out of the sand on riverbanks. Commercial oil wells began in Alberta in the early 1900s. The discovery of oil in 1914 in Turner Valley, southwest of Calgary, was the largest oil field in Canada at that time. The discovery at Leduc would be the seminal event in the Canadian oil industry, triggering an oil boom whose effects are still widely visible today.

The oil boom, however, took a few decades to develop. By 1946, a year before the Leduc oil discovery, Imperial Oil Limited had drilled 133 dry holes looking for oil in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Imperial Oil Limited drilled the Leduc #1 well in a field 15 kilometres west of Leduc. As no drilling had taken place within an 80-kilometre radius, it was considered a wildcat well. Drilling started in November 1946, and continued through the winter: in February, 1947, oil was finally struck. Leduc was the largest discovery in Canada in 33 years, and triggered a boom that would lead to the discovery of the bulk of Canada’s oil reserves, hidden deep in the limestone and dolomite reefs of the Devonian.

Imperial Oil Limited invited the mayor of Edmonton, civic dignitaries, media and the general public to a celebration at the Leduc #1 well site on the morning of February 13, 1947. The crew had laboured through the previous night to repair broken equipment. That morning no oil flowed, but by late afternoon a spectacular column of smoke and fire appeared as the crew flared the first gas and oil. Alberta Mines Minister N.E. Tanner turned the valve to start the oil flowing at an initial rate of about 155 cubic metres per day, and the Canadian oil industry moved into the modern era. By the end of 1947, 147 more wells were drilled in the Leduc–Woodbend oilfield.

The oil find at Leduc ushered in the beginning of a massive economic revolution for Leduc and Alberta. Alberta changed from a predominately rural and agricultural province to an urban economy dominated by the oil and gas industry. With this revolution came accelerated population growth. In 1941, Leduc was inhabited by 871 people; by 1951 its population had grown to 1,842. The economy began to diversify around its strong energy base. The discovery of oil created opportunities for companies related to the oil industry. With new companies locating in the area, residential construction boomed to accommodate the rapidly growing population of construction workers, maintenance and operational staff. Extensive public works projects such as water and sewer mains and street paving were undertaken. Edmonton and Calgary also benefited from the growth of the oil industry: they took on larger roles as insurance, trade and financial centres as oil royalties swelled provincial coffers. As a consequence of the oil and gas discoveries, Alberta became the largest and most prosperous prairie economy. In 1941, Alberta’s population was roughly 800,000; by 1961 it was about 1.3 million.

After the Leduc discovery, numerous American and British oil companies came to Alberta. Further exploration in the late 1940s and 1950s uncovered large oil fields.

The transformation took only a few decades. In 1935, approximately half Alberta’s wealth came from agriculture, but by 1971, agriculture accounted for only 15 percent, with resource mining growing to account for 40 percent. The entire Leduc–Woodbend oilfield was a 300–million-barrel discovery. The original well, Leduc #1, was capped in 1974, after producing 300,000 barrels of oil and 9 million cubic metres of natural gas. Its effects on Alberta remain strong to this day.

Links

Striking Oil in Alberta
Source: CBC Archives
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-73-378/politics_economy/alberta_oil/

Leduc: Causes & Effects
Source: Alberta’s Natural Resources
http://www.abheritage.ca/abresources/history/history_leduc_town_growth.html

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