Leduc No. 1
Glenbow Museum, NA-789-80
February 13, 1947
In November 1946, Imperial Oil set up a rig on Mike Turta’s farm in Leduc, Alberta, to drill a test well on what was part of an ancient Devonian reef. Vern Hunter’s crew were not optimistic, but dug to a depth of 1,544 metres. They hit oil on February 13, 1947. As additional significant finds were made, Alberta was transformed and Canada became the 10th-largest oil-producing nation in the world. When Leduc No. 1 was finally capped in 1984, it had produced over 240 million barrels of oil in its 37 years of operation.
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