In December, 2002, the oil sands of Alberta, Canada – earlier seen as an obscure, obstacle-ridden scientific project – were for the first time included in the Oil & Gas Journal’s year-end review of worldwide oil reserves. To explain this decision, the editors of this established trade magazine cited the basic neoclassical economic theory of price-driven resource substitution. This thesis contends, however, that the neoclassical theory explains little of how it became possible to profitably extract petroleum from Alberta’s bitumen-saturated sands. Merging insights from resources geography and Science and Technology Studies, it fleshes in much-needed detail and dimension to the neoclassical account by emphasizing the role of key actors and decision-makers, within the state and private sector, who have actively researched oil sands geology, pursued technological strategies, and negotiated environmental costs and regulations. The implication is that substitution between two materially different resources is rarely an independently propelled or inevitable response.