The Rural Voice, 2002-08, Page 40the area to explore and drill around
the world. From 1874 to the 1940's,
men from the area took their methods
and know-how "to open nearly every
major oil field in the world". Oil
drillers from the region headed to the
United States, Europe, South
America, the Middle East, and Africa
— making Petrolia one of the most
widely known centers in Canada at
the time.
Today, Ontario produces only one
per cent of its oil requirements and
two per cent of its natural gas
requirements, from approximately
1100 oil and 1200 on -shore natural
gas wells according to the Ontario
Petroleum Institute's (OPI) website.
But Southern Ontario has continued
to make new and significant
contributions to the oil and gas
indstry. For example, since 1942
natural gas has been pumped back
into wells for storage. According the
OPI website, natural gas storage
pools, serviced by 260 injection wells
and 71 observation wells, represent
more than 60 per cent of the total
storage capacity in Canada.
Natives used -
oil and tar
Surface oil and tar were
certainly known to Native
Americans, who are reported to
have used it for medicinal and
other uses from Mexico to Western
Canada. A local history of Orford
Township, Kent County, reports
that "by 1817 there- was a thriving
trade on the (Thames) river in oil"
which the Natives gathered from
"petroleum springs" by scooping it
from the surface of nearby streams
with blankets, or by soaking it up
in rags.
While oil tar had various uses
including pitch for sealing hulls of
boats, surface oil and tar was
probably often seen as a curiosity,
or even a nuisance to some early
European settlers. There is even a
small spot that's been bit of a
curiosity on our back forty – a
small circular area where the soil is
discoloured, the tractor tires slip in
the softer soil and crops fail to
grow. Dad called it "surface gas",
but any true underground origin of
this spot remains a mystery to us.0
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AUGUST 2002 37