Steve Halabura, professional geologist and past president of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS) has probably forgotten more about Saskatchewan rocks and geology than most people will ever know. He will now be to contributing to Pipeline News with a column focusing on the next “Big Thing.”
As a self-described home-grown Saskatchewan patriot, he wants to contribute to getting this province up and running again, so he has offered to dig through his ‘Garage Files’ and prepare a series of columns looking at a number of Saskatchewan hosted commodities that might deserve a new look.
As Halabura said, “I remember $10 oil – March 1986 – and it was brutal. After that experience, I swore to diversify so that my success was no longer dominated by outside forces. Over the next while, I will be examining the question ‘what else can our drill bits do?’”
Here is his biography:
Steve Halabura M.Sc. P.Geo. FEC (Hon.) FGC
Halabura likes to say, “In my 40 years of working as a consulting geologist in Saskatchewan, people keep telling me there is oil out west in Alberta.” When we look at his career, this is not a surprising comment.
Halabura is a professional geoscientist registered in Saskatchewan and is a past-President of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan and is an Honorary Fellow of Engineers Canada (FEC) and a Fellow of Geoscientists Canada (FGC).
Halabura obtained his B.Sc. degree in Geology degree in 1980 and his M.Sc. degree in Geology in 1983 from the University of Saskatchewan. Halabura’s first job was as a summer wellsite geologist with Pacific Petroleums, returning to Pacific upon graduation. When he was moved from wellsite to an office job in Calgary, he decided to return home to Saskatoon.
In 1984 he formed North Rim Exploration Ltd., a geosciences consulting company, which he owned until selling it in November 2009. After a brief hiatus out on Vancouver Island, he returned home once again and continues to offer his services to Saskatchewan’s resource sector as an independent consulting geologist and business advisor. During his 40-year career, there isn’t much Halabura hasn’t looked at – everything from oil (in all its forms and variations) through to potash, coal, helium, geothermal, brines, and gravel.
Halabura is also an entrepreneur and has created many successful resource companies in this province. Highlights of his oil career include being a co-founder of several successful Saskatchewan-based light and heavy oil companies including First Saskatoon Petroleums Ltd., North Rim Oils Ltd., Prairie Hunter Energy Corp., and Rallyemont Energy Corp., each of which focused on a particular aspect of Saskatchewan’s energy sector.
Halabura is also known as “Mr. Potash” because of his involvement in several notable projects. He was the geologist for the Anglo Potash Ltd. team that brought BHP Billiton into the province and did the preliminary work at the Jansen potash mine project. He was a co-founder of Invictus Minerals Corp., a private company that became publicly traded Potash One Inc. and which then was bought by the German K+S Fertilizer Group to become Saskatchewan’s first new operating solution mine in over 40 years.
Halabura continues to “geologize” in the helium, potash, aggregates, lithium, light oil (shallow and subsalt), heavy oil and bitumen, geothermal, oil shales, and natural gas sectors of this province. He says, “I’ve got 40 years of stuff sitting around, and I can’t think of a better time to be looking for ‘The Next Big Thing.’”
Halabura can be reached at steveh@conceptforge.caor 1-306-220-7715.
