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Canada's Industry Minister Tony Clement Tuesday said he had approved a 1.7 billion dollar acquisition by PetroChina of two Athabasca Oil Sands Corporation projects in northeastern Alberta province.
The deal gives PetroChina International 60 percent control of the Athabasca's MacKay and Dover oil sands deposits.
"I am satisfied that the investment is likely to be of net benefit to Canada," Clement said in a statement.
The minister said the Chinese company made a commitment to contribute more than 250 million dollars to cover its share of developing the oil sand projects over the next three years, as well as boosting employment and managing a regional office in the area for a period of five years.
The oil sand deposits of MacKay and Dover are projected to yield five million barrels of oil, according to Athabasca.
The October 31 PetroChina-Athabasca agreement is one of the top oil sand deals reached in Canada since it slumped into economic recession in late 2008.
At an estimated 175 billion barrels, the oil sands in western Canada are the second largest oil reserve in the world behind Saudi Arabia, but they were long neglected, except by local companies, because of high extraction costs.
Since 2000, skyrocketing crude oil prices and improved extraction methods have made exploitation more economical, and have lured several multinational oil companies to mine the sands, but foreign investments remained cyclical.
To date, the United States remains the largest consumer of bitumen from the oil sands.
