Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall ventured into the heart of Canada's oilpatch this week to pitch his province as a model of stability when it comes to royalty rates.

Wall traveled to Calgary to press the flesh with various players in the energy industry.

The message appears aimed at capitalizing on widespread industry discontent over Alberta's plan to boost its royalties. The Saskatchewan premier told executives that his government has no plans to do the same.

"We are simply not interested in increasing royalties."

The Alberta government has said it plans to hike its rates by $1.4 billion starting in 2009.

Many oil and gas companies have been seeking assets in Saskatchewan because they say a new royalty regime in Alberta has made it more expensive to do business there.

The Bakken play in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan has been a particular area of interest.

Wall cited government figures which indicate Saskatchewan sits on 39 billion barrels of oil and 30 billion of those remain undeveloped.

Given those numbers, Wall said his province can't afford to raise royalty rates because it needs to encourage investment.

"We have an underdeveloped asset ... there's huge potential," Wall said. "We just want to continue to send a very positive signal to our industry about investing in our province."

Meanwhile, as a deadline approaches for the Alberta government to negotiate a new royalty deal with the province's two largest oilsands producers, both sides appear optimistic an agreement will be reached soon.

"We are still negotiating. A deal has not been signed or finalized. But we are confident that things are going according to plan," Suncor Energy Inc. (TSX:SU) spokeswoman Patti Lewis said last week.

A spokeswoman for Canadian Oil Sands Trust (TSX:COS.UN), which has the largest stake in the join Syncrude venture, declined to comment as the negotiations are still ongoing.

Since the owners of Syncrude and Suncor have existing royalty agreements with the Alberta government on their massive oilsands projects, the two operators have to renegotiate the terms within three months of the royalty announcement.

Stelmach said hammering out a deal with Syncrude has been difficult since so many players are involved in the 350,000-barrel-a-day operation.

Its owners include Canadian Oil Sands Trust, Imperial Oil Ltd., Petro-Canada, ConocoPhillips, Nexen Inc., Mocal Oil and Murphy Oil.