A number of small Saskatchewan oil producers are scooping up land for future drilling.
Every two months Saskatchewan holds a competitive auction for mineral rights for petroleum and natural gas. If a company is interested in getting the Crown mineral rights to a few sections, for instance, they will apply to the government to have that land posted. Then at the next land sale, anyone can bid on it, and whoever bids the highest, wins. So even if a company had does all sorts of exploration and research to secure a certain piece of property, another company can notice what’s been posted on the land sale and outbid them. But whoever bids on it has certain spending obligations within a certain amount of time or they will lose those rights and they can go back up on the auction block again if they are once again posted. This is quite common.
It took me a while to get to this as it came out last week, but that gave me the time to dig deeper and discover that a good chunk of the activity appears to be from Saskatchewan-based junior producers. And that’s pretty exciting news. Yes, there’s still a substantial amount hidden by land agent deals, but seeing the juniors getting in the game like this is a sign of confidence in the industry. And this was posted BEFORE the multilateral announcement. So I wonder what will happen a few months down the road, with postings after the multilateral announcement?
Drill, baby, drill.
i remember running the lampman unit for Esso some 40 years back . was tough going then
Caltoo … the early 80’s were a nasty time in the oil patch … gave my Calgary house back to the TD bank in 1985. That was awfully hard on a young guys spirit 🙁 Between lay offs and the house, I felt like life was beating me like a rented mule!!
I think I was the geologist for Lampman when I was at Sceptre & Canadian Natural
days of trudeau 1. the industry was in trouble with $40 oil.
remember PGRT pigrat tax ???
Brian – I presume that you saw this? Canadian CEO of Shell is fed up with European politics, policies and taxes..
“Shell could abandon London for a New York listing as it considers ‘all options’—and if it does, the FTSE 100 could lose its biggest player”
Maybe even Murray Edwards will come home from London, after Trudeau leaves. Meanwhile, a London investment banker asked a friend if Canada was not going to build any more roads. The world is watching us and laughing.
https://fortune.com/europe/2024/04/09/shell-wael-sawan-london-stock-exchange-new-york-listing-all-options-ftse-100/