Saskatchewan land sales for 2017 were an improvement over 2015 and 2016 on an aggregate basis, but the lowest on a per hectare basis compared to the last 10 years.
That鈥檚 according to data compiled by sister publication Daily Oil Bulletin, published on Jan. 3.
The total bonus for 2017 was $62,832,390, compared to $53,493,113 for 2016. That year, 2016, was the lowest in the last 10 years.
In 2017, the average price per hectare was $313. That was lower than the previous low water mark of $385 in 2009. The last major downturn in the oilpatch, before the current one which began in 2014, occurred in late 2008 and ran through much of 2009 before rebounding. That was reflected in the demand for land, as 2010 saw the second-highest average price per hectare, at $1021. It also brought in the second-highest total bonus, at $462.8 million.
The low price per hectare for 2017 may be reflected in the fact Crescent Point Energy Corp. picked up a large acquisition of roughly 500 sections as exploratory licenses. At the time, Crescent Point CEO Scott Saxberg noted they had done so for an average of less than $40 per acre, or less than $98.94 per hectare.
That acquisition would have accounted for roughly 130,000 of the 200,967 acres sold in 2017. The 2017 volume of acres sold was coincidentally nearly exactly on par with 2012 and 2014.
The biggest year, by a long shot, was 2008, the year oil peaked at US$147 per barrel for benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil. That year, Saskatchewan sold 765,843 hectares with an average of $1,461.10 per hectare. The total revenue was a whopping $1.118 billion.
