The remarkable career of Allan Markin

One of Alberta's most successful oilmen

Allan Markin became President and Chief Executive of a small oil & gas company named Poco Petroleum in 1982. He was 37 years old.

I met Allan in 1986 when the late Rob Peters, a founded of Peters & Company, the Calgary based oil & gas focused brokerage firm, introduced me to Allan who was looking to raise money to fund Poco’s drilling programs. We only spent an hour together and I came to the conclusion Markin was honest, competent and worth backing. Through The Enfield Corporation Limited (“Enfield”) which I founded in April 1984 (when I was 39 years old) I invested $40 million in preference shares of Poco in October 1986.

Allan Markin had impressed me in our short meeting, and I had no problems backing his company.

Markin and his close friend Murray Edwards both share a storied career in the Canadian oil patch. Markin became Chairman of the Board of Canadian Natural Resources in 1988 and held that office until he retired in 2012, replaced by Murray Edwards. These two men helped build the largest and most successful Canadian oil & gas company. Under their leadership, investors in Canadian Natural Resources have had outstanding returns if they had the common sense to hold their shares and not trade.

That worked for Markin and Edwards. Allan Markin has an estimated net worth of about $600 million and is one of Alberta’s largest philanthropists. Edwards has a net worth of an estimated $24 billion. They remain good friends.

I would like to claim I had some small part in the success of Allan Markin, but in reality all I did was write cheque. Rob Peters played a larger role by recommending Poco and lending the credibility of Peters & Company to his company. Poco met its commitments to me, and Markin has made an enormous contribution to Alberta and Canada.

His success was his tireless dedication to his job and his unyielding integrity. In awarding Markin the Order of Alberta Excellence in 2008, the award committee summarized his success succinctly.