Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach tried to reassure U.S. officials Wednesday that increased oilsands production won't have a major impact on the environment, as protesters greeted his visit with chants of "Keep your dirty oil."

Stelmach spoke at an energy forum in Washington, attended by politicians and business leaders.

The U.S. is hoping to move away from its reliance on overseas producers, and officials are looking to increase their supply from Alberta.

Stelmach said oilsands production is expected to increase three-fold from 1.25 million barrels a day over the next eight years, and that the increased development will not put the environment at risk.

"The development will be made in a very responsible environmental manner," he said.

Stelmach also warned that the province will first have to ensure it has the necessary infrastructure to accommodate an increase in production.

"It requires more people working, more housing, more pipelines," he said. "There's a number of things that must be put in place."

Outside the forum, dozens of protesters chanted slogans about "Canada's dirty oil" and held signs that read: "Stop Canada's oilers!"

"Stelmach should be back home cleaning up the oil industry, rather than running around Washington as an oil salesman,'' Liz Butler, organizing director for ForestEthics, a Canada-U.S. organization, told The Canadian Press.

During the forum, Stelmach said climate-change initiatives like California's low carbon fuel standard will needlessly penalize energy imports from Alberta.

"That doesn't serve either of our countries' energy interests or environmental interests," he said.

"The bottom line is, in Alberta, we do not proceed with development at the expense of the environment...We don't need to be cajoled into acting in an environmentally responsible manner because we're otherwise unwilling or unable to do so.''

He said officials are already careful to monitor air and water quality for pollution indicators.

Oilsands production accounts for less than one-tenth of one per cent of all the world's greenhouse gas emissions, CP quoted Stelmach as saying. Facilities that produce more than 100,000 tonnes a year must cut those levels by 12 per cent.

"It's really all about quality of life of citizens on both sides of the border," he said.

But environmentalists say extracting oil from Alberta's oilsands requires a massive amount of energy, creating three times the normal amount of greenhouse gas emissions of other sites.

The U.S. passed an energy bill last year that prohibits the purchase of fuel from non-conventional petroleum sources that have higher emissions than equivalent conventional fuels.

Stelmach said it will be up to U.S. consumers where their oil comes from.

"The private sector, the market will determine" sales, he said. "There's a lot of demand for oil."

With files from CTV Calgary and The Canadian Press