Message from the Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and Resources, Hon. Bronwyn Eyre

On behalf of the Ministry of Energy and Resources, I am pleased to join with Premier Moe in offering welcoming remarks for the 2021 edition of the Saskatchewan Oil Report.

Certainly over the course of the last year, the oil and gas sector has experienced significant challenges. In response, the Government of Saskatchewan implemented several, key relief measures, including extending mineral rights exploration timelines and reducing the industry portion of the oil and gas administration levy.

In May 2020, our government also launched the Accelerated Site Closure Program (ASCP), with the important goal of getting Saskatchewan service companies re-engaged and workers back on the job. Now in the sixth month of a 30-month program, the ASCP has allocated $300 million and issued more than $98 million in contracts to licensees, which hire service companies to complete abandonment and reclamation activities. The ASCP has engaged 307 Saskatchewan-based service companies to date across every oil and gas region of the province. Completed so far have been 724 well abandonments, 175 flowline abandonments, 39 facility decommissions, and 1,434 site remediation and reclamation activities.

Saskatchewan has also welcomed a number of new, innovative projects over the past year. These include the Prairie-LiEP Critical Mineral Joint Venture, a two-stage pilot project that will produce lithium hydroxide from Saskatchewan oilfield brines, and Proton Technologies’ hydrogen production project, a first-of-its-kind project in the world that extracts hydrogen from existing oil reservoirs and leaves carbon dioxide in the ground.

Helium is also taking off in the province, with important projects in the works from North American Helium Inc. and Royal Helium. In fact, Saskatchewan will soon be home to the largest helium purification operation in Canada. It is being constructed by North American Helium near Battle Creek, SK, and is expected to be operational by July. Royal Helium is currently drilling of three wells near Climax.

As we begin to emerge and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, our oil and gas sector will play a substantial role in strengthening and building Saskatchewan’s economy. In 2019, the oil and gas sector produced over 490,000 barrels of oil per day, the value of provincial oil and gas production was over $10 billion, and the sector supported over 30,000 Saskatchewan jobs.

In November of 2019, we released Saskatchewan’s Growth Plan: The Next Decade of Growth, which includes ambitious targets that include increasing oil production by 25 per cent, to 600,000 barrels per day, and increasing the value of Saskatchewan exports by 50 per cent over the next decade.

Despite signs of growth, challenges to the oil and gas sector remain, including the impact of the federal Carbon Tax, the federal Clean Fuel Standard and the federal Environmental Impact Assessment Act (Bill C-69). As a government, we continue to strongly advocate for, and promote, the sector and its workers, as we call for more cautious, common-sense federal regulation and policies.

Saskatchewan remains committed to being a strong environmental steward, while growing our economy. v