With the oil and gas industry experiencing a mini-boom, the Weyburn area is set to exceed last year's well drilling.

"I would say it was a mini-boom. In this industry, we go through boom-bust cycles. It's a good year, but not as good as 1997. That was a big year for the Weyburn-Estevan region," said Marion Clark of Saskatchewan Energy and Mines.

Up to July 14, Clark's office has issued 370 licenses for well drilling in the Weyburn area. The wet weather has slowed the drilling to some extent by hampering the transport of rigs. But activity is not far behind schedule, with 321 wells drilled as of July 14.

At the same time last year, only 86 wells had been dug in the area, of which 36 were horizontal wells. This year, 182 of the 321 wells dug are horizontal wells. This year is also seeing more development drilling, as 271 wells are development wells and 50 are exploratory wells.

J.C. Ridens, production manager of Apache Canada - who was in Midale recently for the grand opening of the Apache-Dynegy truck terminal and oil-blending facility - agreed with Clark that activity in the area is up over last year.

"Since we bought this facility from Shell in December, we have increased our productivity by 2,500 barrels per day," he said. "We currently have four rigs drilling new wells. This is all development work; it's an extremely mature field."

For Neil Carruthers, Weyburn area supervisor for Gibson Petroleum Company Limited, the upswing in oil activity this year holds some promise of more opportunities for oil service companies.

"The largest amount of activity in the area has been Pan Canadian and Apache, but a lot of their work is infield work and that doesn't provide us with a lot of opportunities," said Carruthers. "Our forte is loading oil and moving it to a pipeline facility. There's pockets of activity, but not every service company can capitalize on that."

Clark asserts that the drilling activity is reflective of the price of oil.

"Because the price of oil is high, the companies are making money. If the price were down, the drilling would slow down because they don't get the returns for the money put in. As long as the price remains up, you can expect to see good activity in the area," she said.

"The price of oil has been a bit of a surprise for everyone," agreed Carruthers. "A year ago, prices were very low, but then they started to come back and everyone expected more activity to come from that. Come the new year, people expected things to take off because of the record oil prices, but it hasn't. Traditionally, with an upswing of oil prices, there is an upswing of activity. Then, when the price starts coming down, suddenly companies are pulling back on operations. It perpetuates a boom and bust cycle. Companies are thinking they've got to take advantage of the oil prices.

"There is still a tremendous amount of oil on the world market. No one is believing that oil prices are going to stay at $30 a barrel. It will maybe stabilize a few dollars off that $25 mark," Carruthers added.

Ridens pointed out that the price environment has been good.

"Oil prices have gone up and we want to maximize production in order to maximize profit. We're also employing a technology that is giving us better output than we expected. In May, we had production at a higher level than anytime in the past 20 years. Closing out the year, we're going to try and maintain the four rig drilling activity," he said.

Looking ahead to next year, Ridens is confident about next year's prospects for the oil industry.

"We still have to look at the budget, but I can say we're going to be very active in 2001. We're just not sure how active."

Carruthers speculated that the upcoming sale of Saskatchewan Crown petroleum and natural gas dispositions may provide hints to the future of oil activity in the area.

"The August 15 sale will be interesting to watch. If we are going to see any dramatic changes, we'll see them in the third or fourth quarter of the year and the land sale will be indicative of that," he said.