terminology:

The correct name for this particular kind of oil resource is bitumen sands. 

Until quite recently, bitumen sands were called tar sands.  During the second oil boom in Alberta, in the 1970s when Fort MacMurray came to prominence, 'the Tar Sands' was the official name and one will find scientific and research reports referring to Tar Sands. 

However, in the rebranding of this kind of oil extraction, bitumen sands are now called oil sands. The choice of name is highly politicised: those who continue to call this area of northeastern Alberta the Tar Sands are predictably against the the continued development of oil extraction from bitumen sands.  Those who call it the Oil Sands, and this is the whole industry and its supporters, are predictably for it.

Bitumen sands can be found in:

the Volga and Ural River basins, Tatarstan, Russia

the Tchikatanga and Tchikatanga-Makola region, Republic of Congo

the Morondava basin, Madagascar

the Colorado watershed in eastern Utah, USA

the Orinoco River belt, Venezuela

Each of these regions are facing the same development problems as the bitumen sands in Alberta, each will have mining camps, environmental impact, pipeline and transport issues, and extraction plants that require much energy.  We might think about the development of a new town in a resource extraction area as a template, perhaps.