As winter progresses and the tourists await warmer months, it may seem that all is quiet at Fairbank Oil, but that’s not the case.
Helping to host the August conference and tour with The International Committee for the Conservation of Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) has kept us busy beyond the summer. The County of Lambton and TICCIH are preparing a final summary report and it includes details of touring Fairbank Oil and the Oil Museum of Canada. There has been lots of writing and editing to get the report just right.
A more detailed essay on tour of Fairbank Oil is also to be published this spring in the Petroleum History Institute’s journal, Oil-Industry History. It is North America’s only journal devoted solely to oil history, professional presentations and field trips through the continent’s oil regions.
The thick journal is published annually in Pennsylvania, and it has a broad reach. Essays by other conference presenters will be published in the journal as well. This will include an essay from the Polish delegation which has proposed that several countries, or perhaps just Oil Springs, should join them in pursuing a World Heritage serial designation of early oil sites. There will be much to discuss with the County of Lambton, the Polish, and TICCIH.
Like all businesses right now, we are finding new ways to navigate ever-changing conditions adjusting as best we can. After all, Fairbank Oil has been adapting for more than 160 years!
One change is that for the first time in about 70 years that we do not have sheep munching happily through the fields among the pumpjacks. Our sheep contracted a fatal virus and before the virus could spread further, we shipped out the others. The good news is that our donkey, Jack, continues to be in fine health and strolls around our barnyard. Like a Walmart greeter, he often can be heard braying a welcome to visitors.
During the winter, we’re turning our attention on all the projects that were set aside during the busy summer and fall. And we’re also making plans for things we’d like to achieve.
In 2023, Lambton County will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the International Drillers from Lambton who took their tools and expertise to 86 countries in the global quest for oil. And there’s another anniversary in 2023. It will mark 50 years since Charlie Fairbank began working here!
There will be more stories to come! Stay tuned!
Use the tabs above to find more stories on our history, technology, Driving Tour, all blogs, and more! Scroll down to learn about Touring Fairbank Oil Fields
Take a leisurely drive from the Oil Museum of Canada and you can see the oil fields in action and our life-sized metal sculptures of oilmen working. The sculptures have been made by Murray Watson and they are arranged like actors in a play showing how the work was done in earlier days.
If you’d like to hear the driving tour’s audio narrative, begin by touring the Oil Museum of Canada and you can get a map with the radio frequencies for each stop.
This a tour best seen at a slow pace. The jerker line moves at 11-times per minute, the same pace as relaxed breathing. Take a few moments to watch it. Some find it almost hypnotic and soothing.
To simply tour without the audio, click here for a full description of each stop.
An authentic horse-drawn oil wagon is driven by Bucky Mitchell to the Receiving Station where local oil was collected before sending it to Imperial Oil’s refinery.
– Photo by Patricia McGee
Number of oil wells now operating: 350
Number of oil wells operating in 1974: 70
Number of years since most oil wells were drilled here: 120 +
Number of acres: 650
Number of barrels of oil pumped here annually: 24,000
Number of barrels J.H. Fairbank pumped when he was the largest oil producer in Canada in the 1800s: 24,000
Number of barrels the Black and Matheson flowing well produced in Oil Springs in one day in 1862: 6,000
Year that Lambton County started sending its 500 Foreign Drillers to 86 countries around the world to open new oilfields: 1873
Population of Oil Springs on the February 1861 census: 54
Population of Oil Springs in 1865: 4,000
Population of Oil Springs in 2016: 648
Number of Munro Honey bees living at Fairbank Oil: 500,000
Number of acres farmed with crops here today: 100
Number of years that sheep have been raised here: 80
Ratio of oil wells to sheep: 3 to 1
Ranking of the abundance of flora and fauna biodiversity of Fairbank Oil in Lambton County: 2nd
Ranking of the abundance of flora and fauna biodiversity of Walpole Island in Lambton County: 1st
Number of butterfly species identified here: 29
Number of grassland bird species identified here: 43
Year Imperial Oil was formed in London, Ontario: 1880
Number of years Fairbank Oil has been shipping crude to Imperial Oil so far: 139
Number of years ago that glaciers covered this part of the country: 10,000 +
Number of years ago that the oil here was formed by plants and sea creatures: 350 million
Number of litres in a barrel of oil: 154
Number of Imperial gallons in a barrel of oil: 35
Number of American gallons in a barrel of oil: 42
Hours each day that the wells are pumping: 24
Average price of a barrel of crude in 2018: $69.52 U.S.
Average price of a barrel of crude in 1972 before the oil embargo on the Middle East: $1.82 U.S.
Average price of a barrel of crude in 1974 after the oil embargo: $11.00 U.S.
Number of wells the big Fairbank & Shannon rig had pumped in 1906: 212
Horsepower need for each of the six power rigs: 5
Number of km. of wooden jerker line on Fairbank Oil: 12
Number of km. if the depth of all the wells at Fairbank Oil were laid end to end: 37 km
Number of metres beneath the ground the oil is here: 133
Ratio of water to oil when it comes up to surface here: 50 to 3
Cost of installing the first disposal well in 1991: $250,000
Number of individual metal sculptures of real people here: 22
Number of donkeys: 1
Current number of domestic geese wandering the property: 7
Number of deer wandering the oilfields and woods: Countless
Lots! In all of Lambton County, only Walpole Island has greater biodiversity than Fairbank Oil Fields.
As the county is farmed more intensively and urban development grows, the forests, wetlands and meadows have largely disappeared. This makes Fairbank Oil Fields very important to preserving these habitats.
There are two key reasons the biodiversity is so huge here. One is that Black Creek meanders through the northern and western sections of our land. The second reason is that our various landscapes are large enough to be brimming with life.
Within our 600 acres of woodlands, wetlands and grasslands, we have sheep, geese, deer, wild turkeys, owls, beavers, possums, turtles, frogs, butterflies, more than 80 species of birds, plus we have 500,000 Munro Honey bees and a donkey named Jack.
And in total, we have 315 species of plants. A number of the trees and plants here are rare for Ontario or rare for Lambton County.
