Sunshine Oil Sands Ltd., which debuted last year on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and has since pursued a secondary listing in Toronto, has agreed to share oil sands exploration technology with a division of China’s CNOOC Ltd.

Calgary-based Sunshine, which owns vast tracts of land in northern Alberta but has yet to produce any significant volumes of bitumen, said it signed a memorandum of understanding Jan. 11 with China Oilfield Services Ltd. to test "multiple thermal fluid techniques and other relevant technologies with respect to oil sands exploration," according to a statement.

The one-year "co-operation" agreement comes roughly one month after the federal government approved the sale of oil sands producer Nexen Inc. to CNOOC for $15.1-billion.