A recent oil conference held in Saskatchewan saw plenty of industry interest as the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference drew out exhibits and people in the oil industry from across the country and the world. The event in Regina lasted from April 28th to the 30th, with appearances from industry professionals and Premier Scott Moe also showing up.
Estevan Mayor Tony Sernick took the time to head to the event and said it was much more oil-focused this year.
"Two years ago in Regina, I would say, it kind of left the oil side behind and kind of was looking at more of the green future, I guess, but this time I think they heard the concerns, and this conference was focused on the oil and gas petroleum industry again."
Sernick says he saw a lot of old faces and new ones at the event, and got to learn some new parts of the oil industry.
"Lots of engineers got to get on the stage, and tell us how they do their job. So, for someone like myself, being on the artificial lift side of things, it's good to get on the technical side a little bit and just be more educated. So it's not like they're just throwing darts at a map and then drilling wells like that."
The province is looking at some changes that Sernick says had a few people excited.
"The multilateral, which is kind of a new technology to the oil field, it's not a new technology, but the provincial government allows more legs in a well, so that was front and centre on everybody's minds. It's not a new technology, but a new style of drilling that is showing good results, and hopefully that continues in the future."
That, along with the provincial government allowing old vertical wells to be turned into horizontal wells, piqued a few people's interests.
Overall, Sernick says there was a lot of optimism at the conference for the oil industry's future.
"There's just some new incentives for those, and that was the talk of the town as well. So a couple of things for the Saskatchewan oil field to chew on, and give them some optimism in the future to increase production."
Sernick says the first goal for the province and the oil industry was to get 600,000 barrels of oil a year produced in Saskatchewan.