The southeast went into 2017 with a cautious optimisim hanging in the air around the oil and gas sector.

Oil sat above 50 bucks per barrel, and companies were snatching up equipment and hiring workers for the fields in anticipation of a busy season. Then, everything went quiet.

"What we have seen is that the OPEC cartel has extended their production cuts into 2018, but the market hasn't responded favorably to that. There is still a lot of inventory, especially in North America, so until we see some of that drop there is not going to be a lot of confidence in the pricing," said Warren Waldegger of Fire Sky Energy here in Estevan.

"When OPEC first met in the fall and agreed to cut production, we saw a bump in pricing into the mid-50's, and now we are back down. That's going to slow activity."

He noted that, not counting the brief jump at the beginning of 2017, things have been pretty much hovering in a close range.

"Going back just over a year, in January and Feburary we were obviously at the bottom, so we are ahead of that. However, if you ignore the first couple months of this year, oil has been pretty steady around 48 to 50 dollars for probably the last couple of years. I would say that nothing has really changed."

Looking ahead, Waldegger observed that he doesn't see a lot of confidence in the market for the near future.

"These production cuts will and are having an effect, however, this amount of inventory is still what is holding things back."

"Eventually we will start to see those reductions, and the price will respond to that. We're just not quite there yet," he stated.