OTTAWA — More than two-thirds of all oil sands 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 EthicsAdvocacy 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% of the ownership of oilsands production was foreign, while the foreign-based companies controlled 24.2% of the sector’s production.

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“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.”

Forest Ethics Advocacy analysis on oil sands ownership

• Companies with foreign headquarters

Statoil: 99.83 per cent foreign ownership

Mocal Energy: 99.33 per cent foreign ownership

Murphy Oil: 99.23 per cent foreign ownership

Royal Dutch Shell: 98.49 per cent foreign ownership

Devon Energy: 98.44 per cent foreign ownership

ConocoPhillips: 97.83 per cent foreign ownership

• Companies with Canadian headquarters

Petrobank Energy Resources: 94.8 per cent foreign ownership

Husky Energy: 90.9 per cent foreign ownership

MEG Energy: 89.1 per cent foreign ownership

Imperial Oil: 88.9 per cent foreign ownership

Nexen: 69.9 per cent foreign ownership

Canadian Natural Resources Limited: 58.8 per cent foreign ownership

Suncor Energy: 56.8 per cent foreign ownership

Canadian Oil Sands: 56.8 per cent foreign ownership

Cenovus: 54.7 per cent foreign ownership

Source: Forest Ethics Advocacy

The analysis, which also used production data in January from OilsandsReview, 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% of the total investments of $73.6-billion in that time period.