Provincial energy minister Bronwyn Eyre was able to tour the Saskatchewan subsurface geological lab in Regina Monday morning.
It’s part of the Saskatchewan Geological Open House 50th anniversary being celebrated this week, with many more events taking place in Saskatoon.
Eyre said the lab is the ground zero for geology in the province.
“It’s where industry, sector partners come here and check out the literal ‘lay of the land’ of the province for their decisions that they make for exploration here in Saskatchewan and for investment, and where they’re going to focus,” Eyre said. “It’s an amazing scale.”
HAPPENING NOW: Energy minister Bronwyn Eyre, alongside Sask’s Chief Geologist Gary Delaney, giving a tour of the Subsurface Geological Lab in Regina #yqr #sask #skpoli pic.twitter.com/YFH2WSyWmI
— Ryan McNally (@RyanE_McNally) December 2, 2019
Eyre said the Regina lab is the first place oil and potash companies will go if they are interested in investing in a new drill site in Saskatchewan.
“Across the board, this is really where industry, sector members come to look at, as I say, the lay of the land here in the province, and just the geological make-up of the province.”
Provincial Chief Geologist Gary Delaney said with Saskatchewan being the second largest producer of oil in Canada, geology becomes an important field in the province.
“If you want to get oil and gas rights in Saskatchewan, it’s a competitive bidding process,” Delaney said. “To get those rights, you have to come out, look at the core, really understand what you’re bidding on and how you can go about doing that.
“We have a number of people coming back and forth, and a number of the Alberta based companies come over here to really learn about our geology and how to go forward with it.”
The Regina lab contains nine thousand square metres of storage for 565 kilometres worth of core drilled in various locations across the province where oil, gas and potash exploration have taken place.
