Obviously—and I referenced this in my remarks—we can balance our budget in large measure because of the upswing that we're now seeing in resource prices. It's not only in oil and gas, of course, but in uranium and potash. We really are poised here in Saskatchewan to be a critical minerals powerhouse.
We have been on the downside in terms of resource revenue and royalty generation when things weren't so good. We've been very diligent about making the investments that we have in diversifying the economy. We've seen that happen with our enormous development in the helium sector, for example, or lithium. I call it a beautiful irony that lithium here in Saskatchewan is being extracted from oil well brine. We are using something from that sector to power the electric vehicles of the future.
There are amazing synergies. There are amazing synergies as well, of course, in helium. I was in Houston before Christmas speaking to investors who didn't realize that Saskatchewan had done the work for as long as we have around royalty regimes and in other areas to foster and develop helium.
We are doing everything we can around the clock, both in the downward times and in the upward times, to diversify and build on our strengths. I think that's the most important thing. We have incentives on the books in Saskatchewan that follow private investment—they don't lead private investment—in helium, for example, and in lithium, and foster research in new-to-Saskatchewan innovative areas.
Again, these are around transfer credits for royalties in the province. It's a very efficient method for fostering new investment in new areas such as infrastructure, for example. North American Helium's new facility near Battle Creek, Saskatchewan, benefited from our oil and gas investment processing incentive. We've done everything we can to build on what we have. It all adds into the mix in the end for Saskatchewan's bottom line.
To call everything a subsidy, when it is building on strengths in existing sectors.... We simply can't turn our backs on the traditional sectors in this province and on the 30,000 workers who benefit from the oil and gas sector in this province and who often have amazingly transferable skills into things such as helium. Calling everything a subsidy and turning our back on that would be blind to our economic potential in Saskatchewan.