The company proposing an oil refinery for Stoughton met with contractors in Weyburn this morning.

The CEO of Dominion Energy, Keith Stemler, spoke to a packed house at McKenna Hall, where more than 250 people showed.

Stemler was looking for business opportunities with local contractors to chart what businesses are available in the community and surrounding area.

"... And then once we get into more of the coordination procedures we'll be selecting the contractors through those types of procedures," Stemler said.

Jeff Richards, city councillor and vice president of strategic development with the Southeast College in Weyburn, attended the meeting.

Richards has previously met with Stemler to help ensure the Weyburn area has a sufficient labour market for the proposed refinery.

"Once they get up and running, I'm talking about post-construction but day-to-day operations also so, we wanted to make sure we understood what their labour market needs would be because it takes time to get ahead of that curve," he said.

Southeast College currently offers power engineer training. In addition, Richards said the college is hoping to work with Dominion Energy to develop a training program which would expose potential employees to the equipment used at the refinery.

Councillor Brad Wheeler was also at the meeting on Wednesday morning. He believes it's in the best interest of Southeast Saskatchewan that the proposed refinery becomes a successful project.

"The spinoff work from (a refinery in the area), it's going to be great for all of Southeast Saskatchewan," he said.

"So, I think there's a lot of people watching us very closely and very hopeful it actually does come to fruition."

Stemler held a townhall meeting in Stoughton recently to speak about what the refinery will mean to the municipality. The talk at Wednesday's meeting in Weyburn was focused on what the company needs to get the refinery built.