Canadian Energy Museum

Leduc No. 1 Energy Discovery Centre

Useful Information

Location:	From Devon Hwy 60 south, turn left at 503. (53.330088, -113.728871)
Open:	Tue-Sat 10-16. [2021]
Fee:	Adults CAD 12, Children (7-17) CAD 8, Children (0-6) free, Seniors CAD 10, Students CAD 8, Family (2+4) USD 30, Veterans free, Military Members free, National Trust free. [2021]
Classification:	Crude Oil
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided, D=1h
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	yes
Bibliography:
Address:	Canadian Energy Museum, 50339 Hwy. 60 South, Leduc County, T9G 0B2, Tel: +1-780-987-4323. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

14-NAY-1914	first successful well drilled by the Calgary Petroleum Products Company, Ltd in Alberta.
1946	Imperial Oil commissioned a team of seismologists to survey Central Alberta.
20-NOV-1946	drilling the Leduc No.1 exploratory well.
JAN-1947	Leduc No.1 struck oil.
13-FEB-1947	brought into production.
1974	well decommissioned.
1990	Leduc No. 1 and the Leduc-Woodbend oil field designated a National Historic Site.
1997	Leduc No. 1 Energy Discovery Centre opened to the public.
2019	rebranded as the Canadian Energy Museum, with a broader focus on the Canadian energy industry as a whole.

Geology

The discovery of oil at Leduc No. 1 made clear that oil was trapped in the Nisku Formation and resulted in numerous major discoveries across the prairies. Until then geologists believed that rocks of Early Cretaceous age had the greatest potential to contain oil and natural gas, But Alberta was actually a marine basin fringed by reefs and lagoons during Late Devonian, which created porous, hydrocarbon-containing reefs. The Devonian layers are older an deepre, so the oil wells did not work because they stopped drilling before they reached the oil. The understanding of the Norman Wells field provided the geological key to unlock Leduc,

Description

The Canadian Energy Museum is located in Devon, Alberta, and is a mining museum a centered to the oil industry on western Canada's conventional oil fields. It is also known under the former name Leduc No. 1 Energy Discovery Centre. Like all mining museums it explains the historic, geologic, and technological facts of the local oil industry. The main exhibit is the Leduc No. 1 Oil Derrick Monument, an old oil boring tower, which shows how in the early days oil wells were drilled. This is actually the first borehole which struck oil in January 1947. The exhibits show numerous artifacts from 70 years of oil industry. Obviously the technology changed over time, new methods were developed and are still developed, as our whole civilization is fuelled by oil.

There is a rather strange story about the day when the oil well was brought into production. It was on 13-FEB-1947, only a few weeks after the discovery. For some reason, we are not sure if it was word of mouth or some kind of marketing idea, hundreds of people went to the borehole on this day. They showed up to witness the making of history. Teachers drove out with buses full of schoolkids, local farmers, journalists, politicians and government officials arrived. And then nothing happened. We guess the engineers were quite busy doing their work and had no spare time to entertain the crowd. And it was a pretty cold winter day, so when the flare line was finally lit, many had already left the premises.

The town Devon was founded for the workers of the oil industry. It was named after the geologic age Devon, because it was thought that the oil was originating from an oil bearing, Devonian formation. Actually the Devonian is named after the town Devon in England, where Devonian fossils can be found in abundance.

The existence of crude oil was known for many centuries, First Nations peoples used it to pitch canoes and to act as a medicinal ointment. The first successful well in Alberta was drilled by the Calgary Petroleum Products Company, Ltd on 14-NAY-1914 near Turner Valley. After first successful discoveries, the oil industry stagnated, partly a result of the world economic situation and the two world wars. But the main reason was that oil companies spent over $150 million on exploration and development but found no major reserves of note. The discovery at Wildcat No. 134, after 133 wildcat wells which failed to yield significant quantities of oil, changed history.