The headline is referring to a (hypothetical) calculation that accounts for things like environmental cost; of course, to make such an apples-apples comparison, you'd have to ding all the other fuel sources equivalently.

Well, the almost figure comes from a secondary analysis that includes additional energy costs,

"Hall, who wasn't involved in Hughes' study, thinks the EROI for oil sands would fall closer to 1:1 if the tar sands' full life cycle—including transportation, refinement into higher quality products, end use efficiency and environmental costs—was taken into account."

Furthermore, if you structured your whole life around a 15:1 ratio, then a 3:1 ratio could very well be effectively 1:1.