This September, Alberta has posted the largest sale of oilsands development rights of the year, largely due to the resource's growing resurgence after almost $100 billion in projects were put on hold last year.

Though the results are still below the province's 'best' years, they show a marked improvement over the previous 3 quarters.

A combination of Higher oil prices, lower costs and improving credit markets have helped put oilsands megaprojects such as Imperial Oil's $8-billion Kearl mine back on track.

Land sales are a fairly solid indication of future drilling intentions - and this of course translates into thousands of potential new jobs.

Which is good news, as Roger Soucy, president of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada said he figures 'at least 10,000 jobs have been lost from the oilpatch service sector since January'.

Source: Calgary Herald