© Boulen Patrick / SA Total  

Oil sands development geared up in the 1970s, after the first oil crisis. 2011 production production amounted to 1.6 million barrels per day, about 1.5% of world oil production.
Output is expected to reach 3.2 million barrels a year by 2020, or nearly 3% of global oil production.

The oil sands industry is relatively new, and its primary beneficiaries are the people of Alberta, where it supports nearly 400,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs every year.
In the next 25 years, this number is expected to rise to 590,000.

Most of the oil that is produced from Alberta’s oil sands is exported to the United States, thereby strengthening U.S. independence from the Middle East and countries that are less politically stable than Canada.