The
Murphy Oil
Company’s origins were in the lumber and banking
business. In 1907, oil and gas production became
more important to Murphy as it began to produce oil
from the Caddo Field in northern Louisiana. In 1950,
the company was incorporated in Louisiana as the
Murphy Corporation, but it changed again and was
reincorporated in Delaware in 1964, changing its
name to the Murphy Oil Corporation. Today the
corporation is an oil and gas exploration and
production company with operations in North America
and the United Kingdom. Murphy Oil acts as a holding
company for all the wholly-owned subsidiaries. In
Canada, the company’s focus is crude oil and natural
gas exploration, production, and marketing of
petroleum products.
The head office for Murphy Oil is located in
Calgary, Alberta. The company has over fifty years
of service in Canada, exploring and extracting oil
in western Canada since the 1950s. In the last few
years the company has increased its explorations
by focusing on northern Alberta and British Columbia.
The Ladyfern find in this area led to a massive two
year rise in natural gas production. Unfortunately,
Murphy Oil has not been able to follow up this
success with further discoveries. In 2003, the
decision was made to sell the majority of the oil
and gas properties in the Western Basin. With these
assets sold, the company redirected their efforts to
higher yield areas. One is the Syncrude Oil Sands
project, which Murphy Oil owns a 5 percent working
interest. These Athabasca oil sands are Canada's
largest source of crude oil production.
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