Compiled by Don Poynton with thanks to Andrew Thompson, Stephen Keenihan and Michael Chaney AO.
Our industry has been blessed with many outstanding leaders but few better than Dave McDonald, WA PESA President 1974-75, Distinguished Member of PESA 1981, Chairman of APPEA 1987-89, Honorary Life Member of APPEA 1990 and APPEA Reg Sprigg Gold Medal 1998.
Dave grew up as a hard-working farm boy in Clandeboye, Manitoba surrounded by his large extended family. He moved to Alberta to work in the oil industry after earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Manitoba in 1952. After thirteen years working for Century Geophysical he accepted a job in Sydney, Australia as Chief Geophysicist for Burmah Oil Company of Australia Ltd (BOCAL), the operator of the North West Shelf joint venture.
….. the reason I joined Burmah was that I wanted to get involved with marine geophysics – and did I ever!!
A two-year contract turned into a long career in the Australian oil industry and a love affair with Australia.
Dave spent 11 years with the Burmah group of companies holding the positions of Chief Geophysicist from 1965 to 1971, Exploration Manager from 1971 to 1973 and General Manager (Exploration & Production) from 1973 to 1976.
Soon after his arrival he demonstrated what was to be his trademark in later years- solving problems quickly and efficiently. At the time, Australia was preparing to bring in decimal currency but still used pounds, shillings and pence, Burmah’s head office in London did its budgeting in pounds sterling, the geophysical contract was quoted in US dollars per mile (statute) and the cable length was in metres. Dave quickly solved the problem by purchasing, without authority, a second-hand “electric machine” that could handle pence and shillings as well as being able to do decimal arithmetic.
His next problem was to improve the quality of the seismic data obtained in the joint venture’s initial survey in 1964. Upon analysis it was revealed only multiples set up by the hard sea floor had been recorded. For the 1965 survey, Dave used his Canadian experience with refraction work and decided to go to programmed gain in place of automatic gain control.
As we were recording on A.M. tape, we didn’t worry about overloading, so we had huge amplitude multiples, but we could filter them off and observe the primaries. We shot a sixfold stack line across the Dampier Sub-basin (line 65 – 6) and it was one of the thrills of my life to see the good quality data.
While acquisition was improving, the interpretation of the seismic data without any well control was another issue.
Line 65-23, shot subparallel to the coast during the same survey was interpreted to show two Cretaceous reefs. Today, we know the features as Goodwyn and North Rankin!
The first of the giant gas fields discovered on the North West Shelf in 1971, Scott Reef, was followed in rapid succession by major successes at North Rankin, Goodwyn and Angel.
Every day it was almost ho-hum! We would drill another 100 feet (30 m) of pay.
As Dave said in his address to the Western Australian Petroleum Club in August 1991, this really changed the whole outlook for the joint venture, not only economically but scientifically too.
The drilling results from Ashmore Reef and Scott Reef had really got us thinking, but it was the results from North Rankin and Goodwyn that provided some solid evidence for the emerging continental drift theory in our area of the globe.
Burmah Oil sold its interests in the North West Shelf in 1976. By that time Dave had been involved in approving the location and drilling of 58 wells – 50 wildcats with 13 that could be classed as discoveries and 8 appraisals (all successful). An outstanding accomplishment.
While much of the technical success was due to the ever- improving quality of the seismic data and increasing well control, Dave’s management style and ability to mould a team played a very important role. As geophysicist Jim Robertson wrote in a recent tribute to Dave:
… central to this was the man who inspired our daily efforts with his leadership and friendship. To us geophysicists we felt that we were working for him, as much as BOCAL, to help achieve the goals he set. I never had a boss who combined so successfully, friendship and professional excellence.
It was not only explorationists who benefitted from Dave’s management style. In the dark days of Gough Whitlam, Bill Whitley, BOCAL’s Operations Manager was faced with having to lay off the Glomar Tasman drillship with a heavy financial penalty, and all his drilling and support staff. This was avoided by carrying out drilling operations outside of Australian waters.
I suggested (to Dave) trying to become a sub-contractor and was successful in drilling wells in the Philippines and New Zealand and banking over two million dollars and retaining the staff, thanks to Dave who gave all his support.
Despite having to deal with political issues in addition to day-to-day business, Dave found time to serve as the President of the WA branch of PESA in 1974-75 having been a member of the Professional Division of APEA since its inception in Sydney in 1967. It was during his presidency that the branch led the push to cut formal ties with APEA and to change the name of the organisation to the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA). In 1981 he was awarded PESA Distinguished Membership.
Following the sale of Burmah’s interest, Dave stayed on for three months before returning to Canada, where he joined Hudson Bay Oil & Gas Co. Ltd (HBOG) on a contract basis, working out of its international office in Houston. Here he put together a joint venture that was successful in being awarded some Exmouth Plateau acreage. This led to his return to Perth (and his cabin cruiser moored at Royal Perth Yacht Club) where he recruited several members of his former BOCAL workforce.
The company drilled the Gandara #1 well, which was the test of a big North Rankin look-alike structure – but unfortunately was inexplicably dry. By this time Hudbay had farmed into acreage in the Eromanga Basin in Queensland, in the offshore Gippsland Basin and the Malacca Straits in Indonesia.
It was at this time that Dave began his involvement with APEA, later renamed APPEA (now Australian Energy Producers). He was appointed to the APEA Council in March 1978 and continued to serve on it until October 1991. He was State Chairman for Western Australia and later for Queensland, and Federal Chairman 1987-89. In 1990 he was elected an Honorary Life Member of the organisation.
In 1982 HBOG was bought by Dome Petroleum Ltd of Canada and about a year or so later the company sold all its international acreage to LASMO. Dave and all his staff were asked to remain during both purchases and most joined LASMO Australia.
LASMO Australia was operator of the various onshore and offshore joint ventures. Its main activities were in Queensland where four smallish oil discoveries were made including Bodalla South and Kenmore. This was when Dave was at his diplomatic best as the Australian partners were none too keen on having things run by an international operator. Offshore, the company made three smallish gas discoveries and one oil and gas discovery. None proved to be commercial at the time. However, exploration in the Malacca Straits was more successful with two commercial oil discoveries in 1980 and 1981, later named Lalang and Mangkapan.
To develop and produce the Queensland oil fields, Dave moved the office to Brisbane from 1984 to1990. When the company sold its Queensland properties LASMO moved back to Perth to concentrate on the North West Shelf.
In late 1991 Dave was transferred to LASMO Plc. London as Director of New Ventures and, amongst other things, directed a team looking over opportunities in the former Soviet Union. It was in London where Dave achieved his ambition to own a XJ Jaguar. All went well until he found it didn’t fit into his mews flat garage.
In 1992 he was posted to Rome Italy as Amministratore Delgato (Managing Director) of the LASMO companies there.
Already past the LASMO retirement age, in 1995 Dave and Jean decided that, although they loved the Italian people and country, it was time to retire. However, the smell of gum leaves, the lure of the outback and his love of Subiaco and Brisbane Lions AFL football clubs lingered in their memories so Jean and Dave decided to split their time almost equally between Vancouver and Brisbane,
… so for part of each year we could live close to family in North America and to good old friends in Australia.
During this time Dave worked on other projects which he found interesting and more as a hobby. From 1995 to 1997 he carried out some advisory work in Australia for Westcoast Energy of Canada. He was Chairman of Vancouver’s Petrolex Energy Corporation from 1997 to 1999, and Director of Hobart-based Coplex Resources N.L in 1998. He was also Chairman of Perth-based NorthSun Energy Ltd and Chairman of New Zealand’s Indo Pacific Energy Limited.
In 1998, Dave was awarded APPEA’s peak award, the Reg Sprigg Gold Medal. This medal is awarded in recognition of outstanding services in promoting the objectives of the industry through valued contributions in and to the Australian petroleum exploration and production industry or through notable and sustained leadership pertaining to the Association. As APPEA Chairman, Nick Heath, said on presenting the medal to Dave:
He has worked effectively with industry professionals and with politicians and public servants at the highest levels of government. He was supportive of both small explorers and large producing companies. He was admired for his chairmanship and management of joint ventures.
Among his achievements … (was) the building of the Associations relationship with government to a more constructive and consultative one.
In 2014 Dave and Jean sold their North Vancouver apartment overlooking Vancouver Harbour and moved into Westerleigh Parc in West Vancouver.
Travel restrictions during Covid prevented Dave from accepting an invitation to be a special guest at the 2021 celebratory lunch held in Perth to mark the 50th anniversary of the North West Shelf gas discoveries. Woodside’s CEO, Meg O’Neill, presented Dave, in absentia, with a plaque depicting the Glomar Tasman on the Scott Reef discovery well and the Ocean Digger on the North Rankin discovery well. This plaque was later presented in person by Breydan Lonnie, VP Woodside’s NWS ventures, when Dave, then aged 90, travelled from Vancouver to Perth and attended as special guest the annual BOCAL reunion in 2022.
Dave had a heart attack on 7th September 2025 and subsequently suffered from congestive heart failure until he died at Westerleigh Parc on 26th November 2025, aged 93.
Dave will be lovingly remembered by Jean, his wife of 71 years; daughter, Linda (Victor Holysh); son, Tim (Jairo Jordon); grandchildren, David Holysh (Hwanhee Cho) and Catherine Holysh; as well as his sister, Josephine, brother, Ian, and many nieces and nephews. David was predeceased by his sisters, Betty Hudson and Dore Price.
In Linda’s words:
Dad loved many things: his family and friends; his career; travelling around the world; playing cribbage; his two countries: Canada and Australia; his Australian boat; watching Canadian football, Aussie Rules football, curling and ice hockey; country and western music; and a glass of Alberta Premium rye whiskey.
On Dad’s last night, he wrote out the last line of Banjo Patterson’s poem “Clancy of the Overflow” for me. The line is part of a stanza that describes the beauty and freedom of the drover’s life in the Australian outback, contrasting it with the dreary, polluted urban life of the poem’s narrator:
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.
R I P David Roy McDonald, admired and loved by all who worked with and for him.
(Unless otherwise attributed, all quotations are from Dave’s script for a presentation given to the Western Australian Petroleum Club on 13th August 1991 and reproduced in PESA News, Aug/Sept 2001.)
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