Nova Scotia’s premier says his government is about to start negotiations with a company that could frack for natural gas in the province.

Tim Houston told reporters Monday that seven companies responded to a call for firms interested in natural gas exploration.

He says his government is about to start talks with one of the companies before deciding on regulatory approvals and financial incentives.

Houston, who is also Nova Scotia’s energy minister, said he expects the other companies to sharpen their bids during the second call.

About 64 per cent of Nova Scotia’s known natural gas reserves are the kind that usually require fracking, and the government lifted a decade-long provincial embargo on the practice last year.

Houston has framed increased resource extraction as a way to cure Nova Scotia’s fiscal woes and dedicated much of his state-of-the-province address in downtown Halifax to the topic Monday.

“I think some of those applicants (from the first call) would probably go away and brush up their application a bit, make it a bit more fulsome and then roll into that second round so there would be some applicants already. I’m still optimistic that we would expand the interest pool,” Houston told reporters Monday.