The oil sands of Alberta have overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world's next source of long lived petroleum reserves. Never mind that they're wrapped up in sand - technology renders that issue less important on a daily basis. Conventional oil too, is still present in Alberta, though its been a while since anything major has been discovered.

But now British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are, thanks to the vast amounts of exploration dollars sunk into these regions over the last 6 years of the commodities boom, starting to become large sources of mineral and hydrocarbon wealth as well.

Especially Saskatchewan, soon to be producing coal, and already producing diamonds, uranium, potash and conventional natural gas and oil.

In June, the Saskatchewan sale of Crown oil and natural gas rights netted $142 million for the province, bringing the total for 2008 to over $600 million.

Recently a permitting rush for both potash and coal have seen an unprecedented surge of interest since recent exploration successes by other companies lit a fire under the collective tails of many mining promoters.

Goldsource Mines (TSX.V:GXS), originally configured as a diamond exploration company, changed gears quickly after drilling in April of this year turned up a pair of coal seams that appear to cover at least three kilometers in strike length and possibly as much in width. The property is said by the company to straddle a major coal basin with numerous sub basins.

The day the strike was announced in April saw Goldsource's stock take off on a meteoric trajectory that has since seen as high as $19 a share, before plummeting back to $4, and as of today sits at $8.00 per share. All this in the space of three short months.

Meanwhile, the province's portion of the Bakken formation, which is estimated to contain between 3 and 4.3 billion barrels of oil, has also attracted a great number of juniors to the area, including Petrostar Petroleum (TSX.V:PEP), and Ryland Oil (TSX.V:RYD).

Saskatchewan is now the second largest oil producer in Canada after Alberta In 2006, the province produced 156 million barrels of crude, and since oil was first discovered there in 1944, it produced 4.5 billion barrels.

It is estimated that the west-central region of the province contains as much as 25 billion barrels of heavy oil.

As far as diamonds are concerned, Shore Gold's (TSX:SGF) Star diamond project near Fort a la Corne contains a total 43-101 compliant resource of as much as17 million carats of diamonds. That's just from its 100% owned Star project.

At an average price of $172 per carat, that means a potential $2.9 billion in diamonds. The company's other project is the Falc in the same area is a joint venture between itself and Newmont Mining (40%), but has not advanced as rapidly as the Star project.

Saskatchewan's potash business however makes it the leading source of agricultural potash in the world.

Rio Tinto's (NYSE:RTP) recently announced plans to supply 10% of the global demand for potash by 2012 has been confirmed by commencement of confirmation drilling on its 1200 square kilometer property east of the Belle Plaine mine 80 km north of Regina, currently operated by Mosaic. (NYSE:MOS).

Several juniors have also staked considerable acreage in the immediate vicinity around the Belle Plaine mine, including Potash North (TSX.V:PON) and Potash One (TS.V:KCL). Both of these companies have announced ambitious plans and seek to be producing potash by 2012 as well.

So Saskatchewan's future looks extremely bright. Currently it leads Canada's provinces in terms of economic growth, growing at 3% this year so far and adding 11,000 jobs.