Transformation: 1950s-1990s

During the years following World War II, the natural gas industry experienced a dramatic explosion caused not by combustion but by increased use and development.

Since the late 1920s, development had been thwarted by the Great Depression and successive wars, but in the decade between 1946 and 1956, the production of natural gas quadrupled. Demand by domestic gas consumers was on the rise due in part to the concerted efforts made by female employees of the industry’s home departments.

The rising cost of coal, about twice the cost of natural gas in 1947, also contributed to a growing market for the gas fields that were being located due to the renewed quest for oil. While there

were only six fields with noteworthy production at the end of WWII, by 1956 there were thirty-seven fields in production. By 1953, Alberta’s gas discoveries encouraged the province’s premier, Ernest C. Manning, to predict that “within a few years” time natural gas developments may place it on a parallel with oil.” The large natural gas discoveries being made in Alberta—Jumping Pound (1944), Pincher Creek (1952), Westerrose (1954), Elmworth (1955), Crossfield (1956), Brazeau River (1959), Waterton (1959), Kaybob South (1961), and Edson (1962)—made Canada an oil and gas country poised to attain its goal of becoming self-sufficient in energy fuels.

Advances in technology were crucial to the increasingly successful search for petroleum products during these years. Geophysical instruments had enabled geologists to predict reservoir locations with greater accuracy than was ever possible through surface formations and intuition. Indeed, in January 1953 the Daily Oil Bulletin reported that there was an oil or gas strike in western Canada every seventeen hours, a success rate simply not possible with earlier drilling technology and location strategies. New technology became even more essential during the late 1960s, as discoveries became smaller and harder to find. Alberta remained a focus of petroleum exploration given the potential of the oil

sands, but attention began to shift to the Arctic Archipelago as well as offshore, requiring greater skill, more sophisticated technologies and newer equipment.

The new discoveries made mid-century helped resolve the stalemate that had developed in the debate over whether or not to export Alberta’s natural gas. While producers had long argued for permission to send their gas beyond Alberta’s borders, fear that the province did not possess a surplus adequate to justify sharing its bounty prevailed. Once this fear was laid to rest, pipeline construction, not only to eastern Canada but also to the United States, began in earnest.

A further consequence of the post-war petroleum discoveries was the transformation of the economic, political and social structures of Alberta. Employment opportunities within petroleum-related industries caused the population to boom, and that population shifted from rural areas to urban centres.

Municipalities were bursting, and new construction was everywhere. Agriculture, long the mainstay of the province’s economy, declined in significance in the face of what one journalist described as the petroleum industry’s “dazzling rays of change.”