Sinopec confirms interest in Canada's oil sands

Making official China's interest in Alberta's tar sands oil fields in Canada's north, Sinopec Vice-President Qiu Xianghua said that China had 21% of the world's population but only had 1.8% of the world's oil supply. Qiu said Canada's oil sands region had the world's second-biggest oil reserve, after Saudi Arabia, and that the high price of oil and recent technological developments make investing there worthwhile for China. Canada's oil reserves have been often overstated, but rising oil prices help make more expensive extraction, which involves separating crude from sand, viable.