diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f847ef80..cf583043 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -4,6 +4,20 @@
 
 Basic SQLAlchemy driver for [DuckDB](https://duckdb.org/)
 
+<!--ts-->
+* [duckdb_engine](#duckdb_engine)
+   * [Installation](#installation)
+   * [Usage](#usage)
+   * [Configuration](#configuration)
+   * [How to register a pandas DataFrame](#how-to-register-a-pandas-dataframe)
+   * [Things to keep in mind](#things-to-keep-in-mind)
+      * [Auto-incrementing ID columns](#auto-incrementing-id-columns)
+      * [Pandas read_sql() chunksize](#pandas-read_sql-chunksize)
+      * [Unsigned integer support](#unsigned-integer-support)
+   * [Preloading extensions (experimental)](#preloading-extensions-experimental)
+   * [The name](#the-name)
+<!--te-->
+
 ## Installation
 ```sh
 $ pip install duckdb-engine
@@ -115,6 +129,24 @@ The `pandas.read_sql()` method can read tables from `duckdb_engine` into DataFra
 
 Unsigned integers are supported by DuckDB, and are available in [`duckdb_engine.datatypes`](duckdb_engine/datatypes.py).
 
+## Preloading extensions (experimental)
+
+Until the DuckDB python client allows you to natively preload extensions, I've added experimental support via a `connect_args` parameter
+
+```python
+from sqlalchemy import create_engine
+
+create_engine(
+    'duckdb:///:memory:',
+    connect_args={
+        'preload_extensions': ['https'],
+        'config': {
+            's3_region': 'ap-southeast-1'
+        }
+    }
+)
+```
+
 ## The name
 
 Yes, I'm aware this package should be named `duckdb-driver` or something, I wasn't thinking when I named it and it's too hard to change the name now
diff --git a/duckdb_engine/__init__.py b/duckdb_engine/__init__.py
index f1bd0299..8413eb5f 100644
--- a/duckdb_engine/__init__.py
+++ b/duckdb_engine/__init__.py
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 from sqlalchemy.ext.compiler import compiles
 
 from . import datatypes
+from .config import apply_config, get_core_config
 
 __version__ = "0.5.0"
 
@@ -131,7 +132,6 @@ class Dialect(PGDialect_psycopg2):
     supports_statement_cache = False
     supports_comments = False
     supports_sane_rowcount = False
-    supports_comments = False
     inspector = DuckDBInspector
     # colspecs TODO: remap types to duckdb types
     colspecs = util.update_copy(
@@ -149,7 +149,21 @@ def __init__(self, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any) -> None:
         super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
 
     def connect(self, *cargs: Any, **cparams: Any) -> "Connection":
-        return ConnectionWrapper(duckdb.connect(*cargs, **cparams))
+
+        core_keys = get_core_config()
+        preload_extensions = cparams.pop("preload_extensions", [])
+        config = cparams.get("config", {})
+
+        ext = {k: config.pop(k) for k in list(config) if k not in core_keys}
+
+        conn = duckdb.connect(*cargs, **cparams)
+
+        for extension in preload_extensions:
+            conn.execute(f"LOAD {extension}")
+
+        apply_config(self, conn, ext)
+
+        return ConnectionWrapper(conn)
 
     def on_connect(self) -> None:
         pass
@@ -189,7 +203,7 @@ def get_view_names(
         connection: Any,
         schema: Optional[Any] = ...,
         include: Any = ...,
-        **kw: Any
+        **kw: Any,
     ) -> Any:
         s = "SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='view' ORDER BY name"
         rs = connection.exec_driver_sql(s)
diff --git a/duckdb_engine/config.py b/duckdb_engine/config.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..fe197139
--- /dev/null
+++ b/duckdb_engine/config.py
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+from functools import lru_cache
+from typing import Dict, Set
+
+import duckdb
+from sqlalchemy import String
+from sqlalchemy.engine import Dialect
+
+
+@lru_cache()
+def get_core_config() -> Set[str]:
+    rows = (
+        duckdb.connect(":memory:")
+        .execute("SELECT name FROM duckdb_settings()")
+        .fetchall()
+    )
+    return {name for name, in rows}
+
+
+def apply_config(
+    dialect: Dialect, conn: duckdb.DuckDBPyConnection, ext: Dict[str, str]
+) -> None:
+    process = String().literal_processor(dialect=dialect)
+    for k, v in ext.items():
+        conn.execute(f"SET {k} = {process(v)}")
diff --git a/duckdb_engine/tests/test_basic.py b/duckdb_engine/tests/test_basic.py
index 5c1b4e41..3da94fe5 100644
--- a/duckdb_engine/tests/test_basic.py
+++ b/duckdb_engine/tests/test_basic.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import logging
+import os
 import zlib
 from datetime import timedelta
 from pathlib import Path
@@ -151,6 +152,24 @@ def test_get_views(engine: Engine) -> None:
     assert views == ["test"]
 
 
+@mark.skipif(os.uname().machine == "aarch64", reason="not supported on aarch64")
+def test_preload_extension() -> None:
+    duckdb.default_connection.execute("INSTALL httpfs")
+    engine = create_engine(
+        "duckdb:///",
+        connect_args={
+            "preload_extensions": ["httpfs"],
+            "config": {"s3_region": "ap-southeast-2"},
+        },
+    )
+
+    # check that we get an error indicating that the extension was loaded
+    with engine.connect() as conn, raises(Exception, match="HTTP HEAD error"):
+        conn.execute(
+            "SELECT * FROM read_parquet('https://domain/path/to/file.parquet');"
+        )
+
+
 @fixture
 def inspector(engine: Engine, session: Session) -> Inspector:
     session.execute(text("create table test (id int);"))
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index a5ece71b..cf75560f 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -21,10 +21,10 @@ whitelist_externals = poetry
 commands =
     poetry install -v
     poetry run pip install duckdb --pre -U
-    poetry run pytest --junitxml=results.xml --cov --cov-report xml:coverage.xml
+    poetry run pytest --junitxml=results.xml --cov --cov-report xml:coverage.xml --verbose -rs
 
 [testenv]
 whitelist_externals = poetry
 commands =
     poetry install -v
-    poetry run pytest --junitxml=results.xml --cov --cov-report xml:coverage.xml
+    poetry run pytest --junitxml=results.xml --cov --cov-report xml:coverage.xml --verbose -rs