![]() This company was a successor to a corporation formed in 1914 to develop the resources of the Viking Field, a deposit of natural gas in northern Alberta. Two years later, in 1923, another gas company, called Northwestern Utilities Limited, was established in Edmonton. This increase was grudgingly granted by the city, on the conditions that the company also construct a second ten-inch gas line from a site in the Turner Valley, as well as begin a drilling program at two other sites. To cover the costs of this expansion, the company requested its first rate increase from its customers. The company expanded its gas supply beyond Bow Island in 1921, when it opened the Chin Coulee well 40 miles east of Lethbridge. To alleviate this shortage, Canadian Western began an effort to develop new supplies of gas. As a result of these measures, Canadian Western's revenues dropped by ten percent. Operators at regulator stations in the city communicated by phone in order to move supplies of gas around quickly and maintain high pressure in the lines. Because of the shortage of gas, the company was forced to limit its service to some industrial customers, in order to supply residential sites. Canadian Western prevailed in 1917, when the Supreme Court of Alberta ruled that it did have the right to provide gas to all parts of the city.īy 1920, supplies of gas in Canadian Western's Bow Island field had begun to wane. ![]() This time also marked the beginning of a legal dispute between the company and the city of Calgary, whose officials maintained that the company's franchise did not cover the entire city of Calgary. ![]() The company suffered a temporary setback in 1915, when torrential rainfall wiped out its main pipeline to Calgary the city was without gas service for two days while the company's repair crew worked to get supplies and repair the break in the face of severe weather conditions that had washed out railroad tracks and bridges. By 1914 Canadian Western's revenues topped $1 million for the first time.Īlthough the years immediately following its establishment presented some challenges for the company, Canadian Western continued to gain customers. Over the year, Canadian Western gained a client base of 3,400, whom it served from 20 wells yielding gas in the Bow Island field. Soon the nearby towns of Nanton, Okotoks, and Brooks were linked to the system, and in 1913, Fort Macleod, Granum, and Claresholm also gained the option of gas lighting. Eighty-six days later, the completed pipeline was the third-largest gas pipeline in North America and the most northerly gas transmission line in the world.Īlthough the public initially greeted the transition from coal to gas fuel with some skepticism, residents of Lethbridge began using Canadian Western gas for lighting purposes by the fall of 1912, and thereafter the demand for gas increased dramatically. On April 12, 1912, the company began construction of its 170 mile Bow Island pipeline. ![]() In addition to planning the construction of the Bow Island pipeline, the company acquired two established Calgary franchises: a coal gas plant consisting of 30 miles of pipe serving 2,200 customers and a pipeline serving about 50 customers, including the Calgary Brewing & Malting Company. On July 19, 1911, Coste incorporated his company under the name Canadian Western Natural Gas, Light, Heat, and Power Company. He acquired rights to this field, dubbed Bow Island field, from the CPR and then went to England to raise capital, selling $4.5 million worth of stock slated for building a pipeline from the Bow Island site to the cities of Calgary and Lethbridge. brought in the first commercial discovery of natural gas in Ontario in 1889." While employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1909, Coste discovered a large natural gas reserve on a bank of the South Saskatchewan River in southern Alberta. According to company historian Len Stahl, Coste had become known as "the father of the natural gas industry in Canada, having. The earliest enterprise of the Canadian Utilities group was Canadian Western Natural Gas Company, Ltd., which was founded in the early 1900s by geological engineer Eugene Coste. The company was founded in the early days of Canada's natural gas industry and has continued to grow in tandem with the area that it serves. In addition, the company provides electricity to some of the country's far northern lands and also conducts other activities related to its core utilities operations. Canadian Utilities Limited supplies gas and electricity to a broad base of customers in the province of Alberta, through its subsidiaries Northwestern Utilities Limited, Canadian Western Natural Gas Company Limited, and Alberta Power Limited.
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