PanCanadian Petroleum
PanCanadian Petroleum Limited was a Canadian independent petroleum company that operated between 1971 and 2002. The company was created through the merger of Canadian Pacific Oil and Gas Limited and Central-Del Rio Oils Limited. PanCanadian inherited the freehold leases on land grants the Canadian Pacific Railway had received in the 1880s, and therefore possessed a massive land base to explore for oil and gas. Through its entire life, PanCanadian was owned approximately 87 percent by the CPR's holding company. In 2002, PanCanadian merged with the Alberta Energy Company to form EnCana, which at the time was the world's largest independent petroleum company. Predecessor companies Canadian Pacific Oil and Gas PanCanadian's history traces back to 1881 and the foundation of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. As an incentive to complete the trans-continental railway, the Government of Canada granted the CPR 25 million acres of land, including mineral rights, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Although the company sold of much of this land, at the start of World War I it still held mineral rights on 9.6 million acres. In 1883, while the railway was under construction, a crew drilled a well 35 miles west of Medicine Hat in search of water