John Gow, Nov 23 - "No point in getting excited. I’ve waited 36 years for this day and I reckon the oil will keep for another hour or two until I’ve had my lunch."
John White. Exec. V.P. Imperial Oil, Sept 13 - "Simple geography would indicate that Canadian crude should find its way to American customers. Unfortunately, simple geography may have little to do with the matter. For while school books show Canada and the U.S. touching each other, exporters and importers know… customs barriers have put a wide and sometimes unpredictable sea between the nations. It would seem common sense to check up on our fences frequently to ensure they are doing what we intend."
DOB, Dec 31 - "Oilmen today look back on 1952’s huge expansion of proved natural gas reserves and pose the great questions of 1953. Will broad approval by government authorities be given for putting to use the gas resources which are among the West’s biggest ‘idle assets’? Will the matching of gas reserves to markets be based on common sense designed to achieve maximum returns…or will the mating be based upon emotionalism and nationalism without regard to economics?"
Carl O Nickle MP, Oct 30 - "It is high time to unscramble Canada’s Natural Gas mess – this unhappy mixture of a resource with scads of pipeline promoters, politicians, flagwavers, misinformation and common sense. We need the most economic planning for Canada’s gas future. That must involve a high degree of co-operation between Canada and the U.S., with economics and not the international border determining pipeline routes. Anything less would be costly to both us and our neighbour."
Carl O. Nickle MP, Dec 31 - "Natural gas marketing, as it has for several years, continued… to be the biggest single headache for Western Canadian industry in 1954. Caught in the squeeze between economics and politics, the reserves of the West failed to get loose and break for markets… but a lot of progress was made that may end the squeeze in the New Year."
Carl O. Nickle MP, Dec 31 - "The willingness of too many Canadians and their leaders to put emotions and political expediency in regard to gas ahead of the cold facts of mounting surpluses and the economics of getting gas to markets has been costly to the nation, and particularly to the West."
DOB, May 8 - "When the key is turned to unlock Alberta’s natural gas reserves, permitting them to flow to markets following years of imprisonment, southern Alberta will experience the beginning of the country’s biggest search for gas."
Carl O. Nickle, Dec 31 - " Western Canada Oil & Gas set in 1957 a new all-time production and revenue record. It did so because of a record first half-year, when the Middle East crisis brought emergency calls for oil. It did so despite a series of events in the final half that sharply curtailed production, brought new uncertainties about the growing gas surplus, and reduced incentive and availability of capital at a time the nation and the Free World can ill afford it."
Alberta Premier Ernest Manning, May 1 - "A National Energy Board should not be empowered to interfere in any way in such fields as regulation or control of production control of wellhead or field prices or control of ultimate consumer prices."
Robert Dunlop President Sun Oil Company, Nov 5 - "Only the preservation of economic freedom is needed to assure a growing abundance of low-cost petroleum energy and the full exploitation of the remarkable versatility of the hydrocarbon."
People on the Move