OTTAWA — More than two-thirds of all oilsands production in Canada is owned by foreign entities, sending a majority of the industry's profits out of the country, says a new analysis released Thursday by a British Columbia-based conservation group.

The research by Forest Ethics Advocacy was based on an analysis of shareholder information in January 2012 from Bloomberg Professional of more than a dozen companies, including nine with headquarters in Canada, and six with their head offices in other countries. It found 71 per cent of the ownership of oilsands production was foreign, while the foreign-based companies controlled 24.2 per cent of the sector's production.

"Some notably Canadian oil companies, such as Suncor, Canadian Oil Sands and Husky, are predominantly owned by non-Canadians," said the report. "The data also shows us that more than half of Canada's oil and gas revenue goes to foreign entities."

At least one oilsands producer, MEG Energy, said the conservation group's research was "just plain wrong," estimating that less than 60 per cent of the company was held by non-Canadian shareholders, as opposed to the Forest Ethics estimate of 89.1 per cent.

The environmental group said it supports foreign investment in Canada, but wanted to see more laws and regulations to ensure that companies do not leave Canadians with excessive environmental risks while the foreign owners are reaping the profits.

"The bottom line is Canada's policies need to be designed for Canadians, not just for big oil and foreign investors," said Tzeporah Berman, co-founder of Forest Ethics. "Our data today is an important part of the conversation around who is benefiting from this dramatic push and expansion."

But Travis Davies, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, noted that companies pay billions of dollars in royalties, not including about $766 billion in estimated taxes to be collected by federal and provincial governments over the next 25 years.

"Furthermore, employment doesn't occur in a vacuum," Davies said, in response to the report. "It's fine for ForestEthics to point to the producing sector and say employment is relatively small. However, that ignores the over half a million Canadians that depend on the oil and gas industry for their employment."

The analysis, which also used production data in January from Oilsands Review — a publication that focuses on unconventional oil issues — found $11.7 billion of investments in oilsands production between 2007 and 2011 were coming from China, making up about 16 per cent of the total investments of $73.6 billion in that time period.

Alberta's oilsands sector has become a target of many well-organized environmental campaigns because it requires huge amounts of land, water and energy to extract heavy oil from the natural bitumen deposits that are considered to make up one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government responded by launching an international lobbying and marketing campaign, in partnership with industry and the Alberta government, to promote the oilsands industry abroad and counter foreign environmental policies that target the sector's footprint on the atmosphere.