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Energy made up 24.6% of Alberta’s gross domestic product last year, and all but a handful of Canadian oil and gas producing companies are headquartered in Calgary. The city, and the province, has seen long-term busts before. Dreadful ones. They can cause wounds in every corner of Alberta, from property values and employment to government finances.

“Obviously if there’s a long-term slide in oil prices then that’s going to have a material impact on the office market,” said Todd Throndson, principal and managing director of commercial realty firm Avison Young.

The firm has previously published papers showing a relationship between the price of oil, natural gas and the office vacancy rate in Calgary. According to the study, when few companies are drilling new oil and gas wells, the empty office space available in the city begins to grow.

“We’ve had a lot of discussions with our clients about what they see happening and what they think is going to happen in the future. A lot of them are saying that this is just a spot-price issue,” Mr. Throndson said.

The North American benchmark price for oil, West Texas Intermediate, climbed back above US$80 per barrel Thursday to close the day at US$82.70. The global Brent benchmark price also rallied to US$85.92, which is still roughly 20% lower than its spot price in June.

Friday, Brent crude oil rose more than a dollar to around $87 a barrel.

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At the same time, stock prices in Canadian energy companies regained some of their earlier losses. The S&P/TSX Energy Index rallied 3.24% by the end of the day trading day Thursday. Bloomberg data showed, however, that the index had dropped 13 per cent in the past two weeks and eliminated what value it had generated this year.