The wildcat that came in under Drayton Valley in 1953 and never stopped
In February 1953 Mobil completed a wildcat called Pembina No. 1 and found the field that Drayton Valley sits in the middle of. The oil is in the Cardium Formation, with more coming from the Viking and the Rock Creek sandstones, and the field is one of the largest and most prolific conventional pools in Alberta by area. It pulled about 900 million dollars of investment into a stretch of bush and farmland and built the town that is here now. It is a mature field and it is still producing: the pumpjacks along the lease roads west of town are the same field, seventy years on.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
