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Nineteen forty-six, Canada had
just started to move away from a war economy that
had lasted six long years.
The country's population
was about 12.5 million; Alberta's in the range of
nine hundred thousand, Leduc's population in 1946
could be measured in hundreds, while Edmonton and
Calgary vied for first place, both in the hundred
thousand range.1
Rail was the main means of
transportation both in Canada and Alberta. There
were four trains per day each way between Edmonton
and Calgary (including a sleeper), The highway
between Edmonton and Lethbridge was one of the few
main ones that had been "paved'' (in part, near
Lacombe, by the direct use of McMurray tar sands),
The road bed was "crowned'', which made it easy to
slide off the road when black ice coated the
surface. But speeds were slower and the ditches were
shallow so mishaps were usually not catastrophic.
Starting in 1913, Alberta was selling natural gas in
the main markets (Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge)
through pipe lines. Medicine Hat was sitting on its
own gas field so there it was just a matter of low
pressure pipe connections. Reserves were sufficient
to supply the market, but there was no economic
advantage in servicing the smaller communities
unless they were right on the pipe line, Although
Jumping Pound gas field had been discovered in 1944,
it was lying dormant and would do so until the early
fifties. There was no thought of export.
Canada's vehicle registration in 1946 was about 1.8 million
(all types); compare this to the 1983 total of 14
million. Alberta was able to supply most of its
vehicles' gasoline and oil needs from two refineries
in Calgary, gasoline plants in the Valley and a
topping unit at Lethbridge that used Montana crude.
Canada's total crude oil production for 1946 was 7.6
million barrels, of which Ontario contributed 1.6%
Turner Valley was the only significant producer: 6.2
million barrels,2 Wainwright, Lloydminster and
Taber measured their output in a few hundred barrels
per day each.3 Canada's dependence On
imports was almost absolute: 63.3 million barrels of
crude to be refined and 18.8 million barrels of
finished products brought in per year for a total
cost of $248 million to the economy"4
The West Coast got its crude supplies from Peru and Venezuela; Central
Canada and the East Coast looked mainly to
Venezuela, which at that time had more than adequate
resources at low well head prices. These did not
translate into competitive plant gate gasoline
prices in Montreal, there being no competition. With
this kind of economics for the large volume market,
there was really no reason then why western Canada
needed to be considered as either a potential
alternative or as a complete replacement for foreign
offshore crude. The situation changed in the fifties.
The corporate mind-set, especially that of
Imperial, was: Norman Wells was not a great economic
success; no other productive reefs like it had been
found; the Lower Cretaceous outfields of Alberta
were both modest in areal extent and pay thickness,
So there was no reason to consider Western Canada
other than gas prone.
Exploration, geophysical and
geological, was supplemented by exploratory welts
drilled from the early 1940's through mid-1946.
Magnificent failures had resulted from
misinterpretation of seismic data in southern
Saskatchewan. Alberta exploration had also met with
little success. One significant wildcat drilled near
Crossfield in 1945 was the tip-off to a
Mississippian outcrop play, but this was not
discovered until 1951, only a mile or so away, No
doubt about it, this mind-set of the companies
seemed to prevail, with little encouragement from
their U.S. head offices.
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