Peter Colwell Bawden, (January 1, 1929 – February 28, 1991) was a prominent Canadian oilman and federal politician. He was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in 1972, representing the riding of Calgary South in the heart of Canada's oil industry. A Progressive Conservative, Bawden was re-elected in 1974 and served until 1979. He was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1990. Oil and gas exploration Bawden founded and built the world's largest (at the time) privately owned oil and gas drilling company. In business for over 35 years, and consisting of a large fleet of offshore and land rigs operated from offices worldwide, Bawden Drilling worked closely with Shell Oil, Mobil Corporation and Dome Petroleum, among others. He moved to Alberta in the fall of 1950 and founded Peter Bawden Drilling in 1952 shortly after his arrival in Calgary. In 1960, at the age of 31, Peter Bawden's first drilling rig struck oil. With its acquisition of Trident Drilling, Bawden Drilling became Canada's largest drilling company. In 1968, Peter Bawden Drilling acquired Brown Drilling in California. Thereafter, as a land drilling contractor, Bawden expanded the company's on-shore operations throughout North America, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, to Norway, Algeria, Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia, Philippines, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Madagascar, and the Middle East. Eventually having operations on every continent in the world. A notable contribution of the Bawden organization was the development of Canadian oilfield expertise and technology in many parts of the world. Bawden's first offshore assignments began in 1968 off the coast of Australia where the company operated that continent's first self-containing platform rigs. In the North Sea, Bawden Drilling became the largest development-drilling contractor in the United Kingdom. Well known for technological, industry advances, Bawden designed and built the world's largest (at that time) semi-submersible rig for Shell Oil. They also had large platform rig operations off the California coast, in the Persian Gulf and off the coast of Malaysia. Bawden set many industry records including drilling a deviated well -11,324 feet in eighteen days from a fixed platform in the North Sea. Other notable rigs were located in the middle of the Pasadena Raceway and behind the Beverly Hills high school. He was a visionary trailblazer in his 1964 activities to promote Canada as an exporter of LNG (Liquefied Petroleum Gases). In 1977, he created Mosswood Oil