The present invention relates to an in situ bitumen recovery process from oil sands. Specifically, the present invention involves the step of treating oil sands with an alkanolamine having a hydrophilic-lipophilic balance factor (HLB-factor) of 0.5 to −2.2 as determined by summing up the Davies HLB contributions for each functional group on the substituents and applying the following equation: HLB-factor=HLB(longest chain)+0.5×HLB(second longest chain)+0.25(third longest chain).