Oil sands, or tar sands, are sand and rock material that contain crude bitumen—a dense, viscous form of crude oil. Bitumen is too thick to flow on its own, so extraction methods are necessary. Bitumen is extracted and processed using two methods: mining and in-situ recovery.

Oil sands are found primarily in the Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River regions of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada, and in areas of Venezuela, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Oil sands trade as part of crude oil commodities.