Canadian tar sand is strip mined and hauled in trucks to a facility that uses solvents, detergents, heat and centrifuges to extract bitumen, a tarry substance. (The local indigenous people used bitumen to waterproof their canoes.) The heat comes from local stranded natural gas. (Stranded natural gas is gas that can not be exported out of the local area because there is not enough of it to justify the expense of the construction of a pipeline.) Bitumen is not suitable as feedstock for oil refineries because it is low in hydrogen. Condensates from the same local stranded natural gas are available to add to the bitumen to increase the hydrogen content. The result is called synthetic oil and it is a suitable feedstock for oil refineries. The entire process is energy intensive.

This definition is in context to Geography. See more contextual defintions for Canadian Tar Sand Reserves.