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Stoney Creek Oil
New Brunswick is one of the oldest oil and gas producing regions in the world. Oil was discovered near Moncton in 1859 where H.C. Tweedal, a refiner from Pittsburgh, drilled one of the first oil wells in North America. The Stoney Creek oil and gas field was discovered 50 years later in 1909. The oil and gas are contained in sandstone deposited in a delta along an ancient lake. The oil wells put down in the Dover area were in the Lower Carboniferous Albert Formation. This would prove to be a significant find, because since that time, most of the exploration for oil and gas in New Brunswick has concentrated on the Albert Formation. Throughout its 80-year history, the Stoney Creek Field yielded 30 billion cubic feet of gas and nearly one million barrels of oil. The oil and gas supplied the energy needs for Moncton and Hillsborough for almost 50 years.
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Today New Brunswick relies mostly on imported oil to meet its needs. The Irving Oil refinery, opened in 1960 in Saint John, is the largest oil refinery in Canada and one of the ten largest in North America. Most crude oil comes mostly from companies operating in Saudi Arabia, the North Sea and Newfoundland & Labrador. Oil is unloaded at the Canaport Crude Receiving Terminal in Saint John, the first deep-water crude terminal in the western hemisphere able to receive supertankers.
The refinery produces over 300,000 barrels of finished energy products every day. More than half of the products are exported to the northeastern USA. Products include gasoline, diesel, heating oil, jet fuel, propane and asphalt.
