WE’RE LAMBTON COUNTY PROUD!

Lambton ‘Oil Firsts’ in Canada and the World:

1834 World’s first recorded purchase of a property for its oil reserves.

1852 World’s first petroleum company established

1858 First commercial oil well in North America.
Canada’s first production of crude oil.
World’s first speculative oil boom.

1858 First commercial oil refinery in Canada.
World’s first integrated oil company established.

1860 Canada’s first successful drilled oil well.

1859 The first oil periodical in Canada established.

1860 Greatest flowing well in Canada’s history.

1860 World’s first Oil Exchange opens for trading.

1862 Canada’s first oil gusher launches the second oil boom.

1863 Fairbank invention of the jerker line system to pump multiple wells.

1866 First well ‘torpedoed’ with nitro-glycerine in Canada

1880 Founding of Imperial Oil refineries at Petrolia and London.
Fairbank Oil becomes Imperial Oil’s largest supplier of crude.

1914 First gas gusher drilled in Canada.

1955 Chemical Valley becomes the largest petrochemical complex in the Commonwealth

1955 Canada’s first secondary oil recovery program

1982 North America’s first natural gas trading hub.

1989 First attempt to mine oil in Canada.

Prior to 1900, Lambton County supplied 90% of the oil needs for the Dominion of Canada. Today, Fairbank Oil Properties and the few other producers at Oil Springs rank amongst the smallest suppliers of crude to Imperial Oil…

The world’s longest-producing oil family continues at Oil Springs, operating the world’s longest-producing oil field.

Robert Tremain, Curator,
Lambton County Museums.