Author: James a Lougheed

Publisher:

Published: 2015-08-05

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 9781332239344

Excerpt from Oil and Gas in Western Canada: Compiled Under the Direction of the Superintendent Natural Resources Intelligence Branch Western Canada has assumed during recent years a position of primary importance in the eyes of the great oil producers of America and Europe as a possible field for future production on a large scale. Resources associated in this connection include crude petroleum, natural gas, coal and bituminous sands, all of which are known to exist, in greater or lesser quantities, throughout this territory. Recent discoveries indicate that the greatest oil fields of the world may be found in Canada's far northlands. Geologists and practical oil men have agreed that the indications of crude oil in commercial quantities are of sufficient importance to warrant an extensive program of systematic prospecting and developing. Such work is already well under way; preliminary results are believed to be very encouraging and increased activity in this connection is assured. It is not improbable that Western Canada will shortly take a rank with the greatest oil producing countries of the world. Natural gas has been discovered at innumerable points throughout this immense area. Some of the more productive fields have been commercially exploited while others are awaiting a market that the development of the surrounding country will create. Examples of these opposite conditions are to be seen, for instance, at Medicine Hat, in southern Alberta, and at Pelican rapids, on Athabaska river, in the northern part of the same province. At the former place the utilization of great gas fields has resulted in the development of an industrial centre of great commercial importance to the development of the West. The reverse condition is seen at the latter location where a gas well that had been drilled many years ago by a Government geological exploratory party and from which enormous quantities of gas continued for years to escape, has recently been capped to await the day when the advance of settlement will give it commercial value. Coal is found in widely distributed areas and almost inexhaustible quantities. Southwestern Manitoba and southern Saskatachewan contain great deposits of lignite. Alberta has most extensive fields of lignite, high-grade bituminous and semi-anthracite. British Columbia has various fields of this valuable and necessary fuel, the most renowned being those located on Vancouver island. Even in the far Mackenzie district there still burns a coal seam, the fires of which were observed by Alexander Mackenzie on his voyage of discovery in 1789 down the great river that bears his name. It has been estimated that the province of Alberta alone contains about 15 per cent of the world's supply of coal. The Geological Survey of Canada have made extensive examinations of the coal areas of Western Canada and have published several reports in this connection. Mining has assumed considerable proportions, though in the case of the Prairie Provinces, it is restricted to a local trade as yet. An extensive deposit of bituminous sand, commonly referred to as tar sand, outcrops at various places in Alberta in the vicinity of McMurray, on the Athabaska river. S. C. Ells, of the Canadian Department of Mines, who has spent several years on the investigation of this resource, reports the examination of some 250 exposures within a radius of 60 miles of McMurray and which represent one continuous deposit. His reports claim these deposits to represent the largest known occurrence of solid asphaltic material. As yet it is totally undeveloped. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com