John Patrick Gallagher

John Patrick Gallagher

John Patrick Gallagher, "Jack," geologist, industrialist (b at Winnipeg 16 July 1916; d at Calgary 16 Dec 1998). After working as a student geologist in the NWT and graduating from U of Man, he spent 11 years, starting 1938, as a petroleum geologist exploring for oil for Shell Oil, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Imperial Oil, in California, Egypt, S America and Western Canada. In 1950 he established a firm that later became DOME PETROLEUM with initial financing of $250 000 in equity and $7.7 million in loans, backed by Dome Mines and the endowment funds of several American universities.

Dome made promising discoveries of oil at Drumheller and gas in the Provost field in Alberta, but Gallagher's real interest was in the Canadian Arctic, where, with its partners, Dome spent hundreds of millions of dollars drilling in the BEAUFORT SEA, finding several deposits of oil and gas that would, however, require billions of dollars to be brought into production. In the late 1970s Dome began unprecedented expansion and, after accumulating debts of some $7 billion, was forced to sell many of its assets. The sale of Dome itself was under negotiation late in 1987. Gallagher resigned as chairman of the board and CEO in 1983, and in September 1988 Amoco Canada Petroleum Co bought Dome for $5.5 billion. In 1984 he founded and was chairman of Pauma Petroleum Ltd, later called Prime Energy Inc. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1983. Upon his death, Gallagher was recognized as a masterful lobbyist and a pioneering, if controversial, figure in the history of Canadian energy development.