Japan will dispatch its first public-private weeklong mission to Alberta on Saturday to study the feasibility of exploiting its oil sands, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Friday.

Oil sands are deposits of bitumen trapped in a mixture of sand, water and clay. Surging oil prices have raised interest in finding a cheaper way to develop the sands as an energy source.

The nine-member mission will include an official from METI's Natural Resources and Energy Agency, and representatives of four oil wholesalers -- Cosmo Oil Co., Idemitsu Kosan Co., Nippon Oil Corp. and Japan Energy Corp., and trading houses Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui & Co.

The team will visit Edmonton and Calgary to inspect oil sand development facilities and talk with Alberta government officials and local oil producers, METI officials said.

Global reserves of oil sands, also called tar sands, are estimated at 2 trillion barrels, with 44 percent in Canada and 50 percent in Venezuela. One to two tons of oil sand are needed to produce one barrel of crude.

Production costs are relatively high because tar sands yield mostly heavy oil, which will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons.

Canada exports its oil sands through pipelines to the United States, but it has not developed shipping routes to the Pacific Coast beyond the Rocky Mountains.

Japan does not have the capacity to process oil sands, but they are being viewed as a potential future energy source, the officials said.

Referring to the mission, industry minister Toshihiro Nikai emphasized the importance of diversifying energy supplies at a news conference Friday.