Three years ago, an Alberta, Canada, energy official got to talking to a state-side delegate at an international trade event in Toronto who suggested that someday she ought to take the short jaunt to Pittsburgh.

Two years ago in June, the Smithsonian feted Alberta as part of its annual folklife festival, prompting the province to showcase the world's largest dump truck with 4-meter-tall tires on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the truck being a yeoman in Alberta's booming oil-from-sand industry.

Fastforward to yesterday afternoon, when Lori Schmidt, a deputy secretary in the province's finance department, made good on her promise. Leading a delegation of provincial and industry leaders, Ms. Schmidt was in town for four days to forge stronger partnerships with businesses in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The goal: to build upon the existing ties between the two regions by capitalizing on the varied supply-chain and research needs of the burgeoning and controversial Alberta oil sands.

Once considered a costly option that produced an inferior product, the industry has gained prominence as technology advanced and oil prices hit $150 per barrel. But environmentalists still cite eye-popping carbon emissions and water use that make the tar pit product even less desirable than conventional oil.

Hosted by the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, Ms. Schmidt said the province is tackling the carbon-footprint problem, becoming the first jurisdiction in North America to legislate greenhouse gas reductions.

Her main message to about 80 Alliance members: The time was ideal for some cross-border matchmaking. The projected growth in the industry has been accompanied by a similar growth in the need for machinery, chemical processing, safety equipment and, of course, workers.

"We're looking for new opportunities to expand our horizons, to build alliances with Pittsburgh," Ms. Schmidt said. "We want to improve our productivity capacity … and we know we can't do this alone."

Canada is the largest supplier of oil to the United States, much of it originating from the oil sands in northern Alberta, home to the world's second largest proven reserve with 173 billion barrels, behind Saudi Arabia's 260 billion.

Ms. Schmidt said Alberta produced 2.1 million barrels per day in 2006 and hopes to increase that to 3.5 million barrels by 2020.

The Alliance has formed the Alberta Strategy Group led by Canadian native Jim Marczak of Sycor Americas Inc., a multinational information technology firm based in Robinson.

Three regional companies already have tapped into the oil-sands play -- Nova Chemicals Corp. of Moon, Kennametal Inc. of Latrobe, and Industrial Scientific Corp. of Oakdale.

According to the Pittsburgh Alliance, four of Canada's 16 Fortune Global 500 companies have a presence in Pittsburgh, led by the 1,000 employees of Montreal-based rail-shuttle designer Bombardier. Nova is next with 675 employes, with its corporate headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, and its U.S. operations center in Moon.

Kevin Miller, general manager of Industrial Scientific, said the privately held employer of 900 counts on the molasses-like sand pits for no less than 5 percent of its total revenue , in the form of hundreds of gas detectors.

Vernon Cameron, Kennametal global marketing vice president, said his firm supplies many of the components for high-use, subArctic-ready drill bits, metal rippers and pump parts.

Eric Kelusky, Nova technology vice president, said Nova already works in the oil sands developing petrochemicals and capturing the ethane gas by product for all sorts of everyday uses, including the plastic wrap on food-store meat packages.

The challenge when it comes to dealing with synthetic oil from the Alberta sands -- literally squeezed and steamed out of the sand to produce bitumen -- is that it is more elusive and heavier than its light crude cousins.

"Think of it as the bottom of barrel, it can be used but not very effectively," he said of the sands-oil ethane. But with the right technology, he said, "there's a lot of opportunities to turn that into high-quality petro chemicals."