A History of Well Logging In Canada
Authors: Crain E.R. 
Published: March 2010

Early History

The history of well logging in Canada begins in 1937, a mere 10 years after the very first electric log was run in the Pechelbronn oilfield in France on September 5th 1927. A quote from the official Schlumberger history tells the story: "In another part of the country, a young engineer named Bill Gillingham was attempting to raise some interest in electric logging in the Bradford, Pennsylvannia area. The response was not immediately tremendous. A trainee under Gillingham, R.R. Rieke, was told to head west by northwest, to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, embarking on one of the strangest Schlumberger journeys you've heard of."

"You see, they ended up in Canada, not looking for oil, but for gold. The preliminary work had been conducted by Andre A1legret and, as a result of surface exploration, a contract had been let. "When we arrived, Rieke said, ‘trouble was afoot. They had found gold alright, but not where the survey had said. When they drilled there nothing. We left rather quickly’."

Two years, later, "electric logs" were introduced to the Canadian oil patch in 1939 by the forerunner of today's Halliburton Services Ltd. The first Halliburton unit was operated out of Black Diamond, Alberta, by Jack Pettinger, who remained active until 1979. Jack and another pioneer, Stan Nelner, currently with Halliburton in London, England, recalls that trips of hundreds of miles to such far-flung wildcat sites as Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Pouce Coupe, B.C., and Lloydminster were not uncommon.

During the war years, equipment was also stationed at Norman Wells on the Canol Project and at Vermilion, Alberta. The logger of those days had to be versatile because he was often called upon to operate cementing and acidizing equipment, or to run drill-stem tests, in addition to the standard electrical survey (ES). With increased demands after Leduc, more modern survey equipment was added. Also, the "FM" (frequency modulated) system of transmitting subsurface data via a single conductor cable was adopted by Halliburton. This technique has remained a unique feature of the Halliburton-Welex wireline equipment.

The approximate dates of first availability of modern logging methods, as recalled by Gerry Obermeyer, current manager of operations for Halliburton, were Focused Resistivity 1952, Radioactive 1954, Induction 1954 and Acoustic 1958. A shift in the development of Canadian operations also occurred in 1957 when the parent company purchased WELEX Incorporated. A combined WELEX-Halliburton Electrical Well Section operated in Canada as a separate company for some time. The perforating service, which had also been introduced to Canada by Halliburton in 1940, was expanded. Later, that group was absorbed as an operating division of Halliburton Services Ltd.

Schlumberger arrived permanently in Canada in 1946 by opening a location at Lloydminster, manned by such notables as Ed Burge, Hugh Gough and Arne Thorson. Truck numbers were in the 200 series. One of the older units in Canada about that time required that the crew jack up the rear end and install a chain from the rear axle to the winch drive.