canada's oil sands., page-4

Spot on,

There is 2 methods to the steam injection, one where they inject the steam from above and have another pipe below which extracts the oil. The heat lowers the viscosity of the oil and it simply flows from the sands via pressure out the extaction pipe.

The other involves injecting steam from above, building up the pressure and the oil then flows out the same pipe.

Apparently the open cut method, as long as the sands are not too deep, is the most economical method as they can gain higher percentages of oil. The only setback is the environmental impact.

This is all very exciting I believe, does anyone know which companies are involved?

P.S As mentioned the above was heard whilst half asleep so is likely not to be 100% accurate.