The Minister of Energy and Resources, Bronwyn Eyre, was in Estevan this afternoon speaking at a luncheon hosted by the Estevan OTS.

"It was important to come down to Estevan to Minister Carr's constituency," she shared, "and put some names to faces and chat with some people and obviously address this great organization here today."

"I was very pleased to be invited and talk a little bit about the state of the sector. things are looking good in some ways in the price of oil but there are realities on the ground that put that put that into some perspective."

She also took questions from those in attendance.

"There were some good questions around federal policies, transporting goods to market. It's a great opportunity and I just wanted to connect with the community here and talk a little bit about the sector from the provincial perspective. What I'm trying to do is rais awareness about some of the regulatory threats that we're seeing from the federal government, (Bill) C-69, clean fuel standard, and obviously the carbon tax."

"There's a lot of work to be done and a lot of expectations around continued challenges that the sector faces. I was in the southwest last week as well and there are some concerns around orphan wells, abandonment, some insurance issues, that sort of thing that relate to drillers. Again, getting goods to market, not only pipelines but transportation more broadly, trains and so on."

Regulation questions also came up as a point of concern.

She added that it was a great pleasure to be here in Estevan.