Black Gold

Black Gold


One of the companies formed from the break up of giant Standard Oil Company was Stanolind Oil and Gas, later known as AMOCO. The first successful oil well in Canada, by this company, was drilled on River Lot 8 in late 1952. In those days, drilling an exploratory well took several weeks. The zone sought out was the Devonian Reefs at approximately 4,400 feet. The T. Easton Drilling Company from Oklahoma was the drilling contractor. Erecting the steel frame took days as did the cementing procedure for the first 300 feel of surface casing.

It was necessary to have a coal fired (by hand) steam boiler for heat and hot water heating. The main drilling engines were GMC diesels.

The site location was quite close to our house and barns. All of the truck traffic passed within feet of the house. The bright lights, noise, truck traffic, smells and sometimes general mayhem were all taken in stride by our parents and all of us kids were no worse off. This was a stark contrast to what would occur today.

Some notable events during the weeks of drilling and the extensive testing as each hydro-carbon zone was encountered were:

1. The loud hammering noise as the rough necks banged the drill pipes the pipes were raised, to ensure that no blow outs occurred.
2. The night the canvas covered equipment on the drill rig caught on fire, we were told to prepare to evacuate the farm.
3. The write-ups in the Edmonton Bulletin newspaper outlining the successful zones encountered by the Oil Co.
4. The time during a holiday break, Christmas, when some head office staff were at the drilling rig and a pipe column of one of the pumping systems blew several yards into the air.
5. The extensive flaring of oil and natural gas to test each zone – the tests were for several hours and could be quite smelly and noisy.

Shortly after Christmas, 1952, a tank storage and gas/oil facility was set up and steady production commenced.

Later, in 1953, storage facilities were re-located to River Lot 9, Duncan MacDonald’s farm where today there is a small gas and oil processing/compression facility. Production from this original well (St. Albert #1) continued into the 1990s.

Today, nearby this actual site are two producing gas wells.