Oil sands are a type of unconventional oil that is a mixture of sand and dense, viscous bitumen. Utah contains approximately 55 percent of U.S. oil sands deposits, concentrated in eight major areas with a total resource volume of over 30 billion barrels.
Petroteq, a Canada-based company, is leading the charge to extract this valuable commodity. The technology they use is different from other oil sands projects in that it consists of solvents that can separate oil from rocks at little cost and with no water or air pollution. It is a "closed-loop" process that perpetually reuses the proprietary solvents. The company claims the break-even price is $32 a barrel, including all costs and taxes—less than half the current price for crude oil.