Energy and oil

Drilling for oil was first undertaken in Canada in 1851 in Enniskillen Township in Lambton County by the International Mining and Manufacturing Company of Woodstock, Ontario. There was fierce competition for oil drilling, refining and distribution in southern Ontario until 1880 when 16 oil refineries merged to form Imperial Oil. This company was in turn acquired in 1898 by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust. Oil discovery and development in the west dates from the early 20th century with Imperial becoming a major player by 1914, at Turner Valley, Alberta and in 1920 at Norman Wells, NWT. British based corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell and Anglo-Persian Oil (British Petroleum) also became involved in oil exploration in the west at this time.
Oil refining required sulfuric acid, and two entrepreneurs, T.H. Smallman and W. Bowman, established the Canadian Chemical Company in London, Ontario in 1867 to manufacture this product for the region's oil industry. This marked the beginning of the mass production of heavy industrial chemicals in Canada.
The discovery of oil and gas led to the construction of Canada's first energy pipelines. In 1853 an iron pipeline from the Maurice River area carried natural gas 25 kilometres to Trois-Rivières, Quebec, where it was used to provide street lighting. In 1862 a pipeline was built to carry oil from wells in Petrolia, Ontario to Sarnia for refining and in 1895 another natural gas pipeline, 20 centimetres in diameter, linked wells in Essex County, Ontario to Windsor and passed under the Detroit River to Detroit.
Coal gas public street lighting systems were introduced in Montreal in 1838, in Toronto in 1841 and in Halifax in 1850. Coal gasification plants were built in these cities and others to provide the gas for the lighting systems. Most remained in operation until the 1950s when they were phased out due to a loss of demand, in favour of the more practical and inexpensive natural gas. The decommissioning of these sites was often problematic due the accumulation of toxic coal tar in the ground