THE STORY OF THE TURNER VALLEY GAS PLANT AND THE TURNER VALLEY OILFIELD

THE TURNER VALLEY OILFIELD STORY

Historical Background

At first, the gas just bubbled out of the bank along the Sheep River. Aboriginal peoples knew of the gas for centuries, but had no particular use for it, though in the north, tar seepages yielded medicines and pitch for caulking canoes. Legend has it that cowboys fried bacon and eggs over the gas seepages as they passed through the area on cattle drives. The gas was easy to find since their horses refused to drink where it bubbled up in the water.

At Turner Valley, the real potential of the oil and gas went unrealized in the early years of settlement. Ranchers and farmers made a living off the land as best they could. Some harvested coal from exposed seams in the river banks. Others sank shafts and opened commercial operations. Black Diamond is named after a coal mine sunk into the ridge that separates it from its sister town of Turner Valley.

Although Turner Valley eventually became Western Canada's largest and most productive oilfield until the late 1940s, it was not the first petroleum producer either in Canada or in the West. In 1858, James Millar Williams brought in the first North American oil well by digging with a shovel at Petrolia, Ontario. In southeastern Alberta during the territorial period, a Canadian Pacific Railway crew struck gas in 1883 while drilling for water. An 1897 well at Pelican Rapids along the Athabasca River in northern Alberta hit gas and blew wild for 21 years.

Simply put, Canadians needed petroleum more and more with each passing year. At first it was used for lamps and lubrication. Later gas stoves began to replace wood and coal. In 1898, the first automobile arrived in Canada. Demand for petroleum products blossomed as the twentieth century dawned.

In 1902, John Lineham's Rocky Mountain Development Company drilled a well on Cameron creek near today's Waterton Lakes and produced the first oil in Alberta. Two year later the community at Medicine Hat rejoiced when its gas field began supplying abundant fuel for home and industry. In 1909, the "Old Glory" well struck gas near Bow Island in eastern Alberta. By 1912, Eugene Coste's Canadian Western Natural Gas Company had completed a 280 kilometer (175 mile) gas pipeline to Calgary, the first one in western Canada.

THE TURNER VALLEY DISCOVERY

Meanwhile, William S. Herron, an Okotoks rancher, had begun buying up land along the Sheep River, west of Black Diamond. Herron had seen the gas seepage too, and had probably cooked his own trial meals over them. But Herron was different from other, more casual observers. Herron captured some of the gas in a bottle and sent it for analysis. The result led him to drill for the source through his new company, Calgary Petroleum Products (CPP).

May 14, 1914 was a watershed for petroleum development in Western Canada. Previous efforts had led to trace discoveries only; but the CPP well, in the heart of what was known then as Turner's Valley, was different. Under the guidance of chief driller, A.W. Dingman, on May 14 the well struck sweet wet gas. "Dingman No.1" put Turner's Valley on the world map.

Newspapers across Canada and throughout the British Commonwealth splashed news of the discovery on their front pages. Calgary residents flocked to the well site. Herron brought in a compressor and installed a separator to recover gasoline for the wet gas. Some of visitors filled their tanks with condensate, or gasoline, and boasted of its powerful properties.

THE IMPERIAL TAKEOVER

Calgary Petroleum Products also built an absorption plant in 1914 to extract natural gasoline from the gas. The only other absorption plant in the world had begun operating just one year earlier in West Virginia, and the high cost of the equipment kept the company teetering n the brink of insolvency. CPP staggered from one crisis to the next until October 20, 1920 when a fire demolished the absorption plant. Herron was finally forced to sell out to the Imperial Oil Company and Imperial's new subsidiary, Royalite Oil Company Ltd., rose from the ashes of Herron's original plant.

Royalite hired an experienced oil man, Sam Coultis, to manage the company oilfield interests. Coultis designed and built a new absorption plant and installed compressors to push the gas through the Canadian Western Natural Gas, Light, Heat and Power Company six inch (15 cm) line to Okotoks. At Okotoks it joined the gas company's pipeline from Bow Island to Calgary, and by the end of 1922 Turner Valley natural gas was supplying Calgary customers.

HELL'S HALF ACRE

In 1922, Royalite began drilling the well that gave Turner Valley its most famous landmark. By drilling deeper than Dingman #1 well, on October 14, 1924 Royalite #4 struck an uncontrollable source of sulphur-laden gas 1140 meters (3470 feet) below the surface. The well blew wild, the workmen scattered, and a dreadful spark ignited the blow-out. Local oilmen failed to snuff out the well, so Oklahoma specialists were brought in and put out the blaze with dynamite. Channelled through two frost-encased pipes, this waste natural gas from Royalite #4 was 'flared off' in a coulee just northeast of town. It burned so violently that the ground shook. The seared ground in the coulee came to be known as Hell's Half Acre, where the gas burned like its namesake for many years, disposing of an odorous and dangerous product for which there was no market. When the conditions were right, light from Turner Valley lit up the sky in Calgary and throughout southern Alberta.

SOUR GAS

The discovery of 'sour' gas, smelling badly of dangerous hydrogen sulphide (H2S), created a new challenge for Royalite. Its extreme pressure was hard to handle and called for new procedures. Most important, it had to be "scrubbed" of the H2S of "sweetened", before consumers could use it safely.

Sam Coultis once again provided his expertise. By late 1924 Royalite was processing sour gas in a scrubbing plant and piping it to Calgary. City residence burned safe gas from the Turner Valley Gas Plant from 1924 until 1951, while the residence of the oilfields lived with the results of the process. Using steam driven blowers, Royalite mixed the H2S with air and propelled it up two tall stacks to further mix with prevailing westerly winds.

The smell of Tuner Valley was annoying to some and pleasing to others. Some thought it contributed to illness; many admitted that it was not nice to breathe. Most willingly accepted it as the cost of progress. Indeed, during the hard times of the Depression, jobs in the oilfields drew unemployed from across the country. In the days before hard hats, gas masks, or even much understanding of "sour gas", most were happy just to find work.

Although gas processing was the main source of employment at the Turner Valley Gas Plant, oil filled the investors' dreams. In the early days of production in the Turner Valley field, the oil companies flared the excess gas in order to keep production costs down on what they considered the most valuable liquids. The whole nature of Turner Valley production changed in the 1930s. In 1936, Turner Valley Royalties #1 well hit crude oil just north of Longview and started a drilling boom in the south end of the oilfield. About the same time, the Alberta government recognized that the senseless flaring of excess gas was destroying the pressure in the field, making it harder to move the oil to wellhead. In 1938, it created the Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Board to limit the waste and maximize the economic potential of the oilfield.

World War II broke out in Europe in September 1939 and Canada's largest producing oilfield at Turner Valley became the centre of a massive expansion. Ottawa funded wildcat drilling thought a Crown corporation called Wartime Oils and ordered the taps turned open on any oil that had been "shut in" at the wellhead. At its peak, in 1942, this oilfield produced in excess of 10 million barrels of oil to assist the war effort. For example, the Imperial Oil Refinery in Calgary made aviation fuel for the Commonwealth Air Training Program using products from the Turner Valley Gas Plant.

CONCLUSION

The Turner Valley oilfield was western Canada's first significant producer of oil and natural gas. Built on the site of the 1914 discovery, this facility dates to 1933, It boasted the first high pressure absorption gas extraction plant in Canada. Other significant technological achievements include Canada's first sour gas scrubbing plants of their type (built in 1935 and 1941), the first propane plant in Canada (1949-1953), and one of Canada's first two sulphur plants (1952).

This historic plant, with minor modifications, remained operational until 1985 and is the only one of its kind in existence in Canada.

From, Historic Turner Valley, Cradle of Westen Canada's Oil and Gas Industry, pg 13-18