Alberta contains the Athabasca oil sands, one of the world's largest bitumen deposits.
The deposits lie mainly in northern Alberta around the Athabasca River. Bitumen is a very heavy form of petroleum that does not flow easily at ordinary temperatures, so producing it requires mining or in-situ techniques such as steam-assisted gravity drainage.
Surface mining can remove shallow oil sands, after which the bitumen is separated from sand, clay and water. Deeper deposits are generally developed underground with heated steam. The recovered bitumen may be upgraded into synthetic crude oil or blended with lighter hydrocarbons for transport.
Athabasca is one of several major oil-sands regions in Alberta; Peace River and Cold Lake are the others. Oil sands are sometimes called tar sands, but bitumen is petroleum rather than coal tar.