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“At this point it looks as though it will be more on the transitory side,” said Benjamin Reitzes, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, whose bank cut forecasts for 2016 GDP growth to 1.6 per cent from 1.8 per cent. “The worst fears have not been realized.”

Ramping Up

Oil sands operations came out largely unscathed from the fires and companies are beginning the restart process. Even Fort McMurray, the hub of the industry, was left almost 90 per cent intact.

If companies can get access to their sites by the end of this week and ramp up production over 10 days, the shutdowns would translate into a loss of about 650,000 barrels a day during a three-week period, or 14 million barrels, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a note Monday.

A loss of 1 million barrels per day would effectively reduce Canadian GDP by just under 0.05 percentage points, according to a rule of thumb used by economists. Royal Bank of Canada estimates a two-week reduction of that magnitude would trim growth by 0.5 percentage points in May and by about 1 point in the second quarter.

‘Modest Hit’

There are still risks that production restarts could be slowed by pipeline and power generation outages, shortages of diluent and even problems finding staff. Canadian natural gas producers are also suffering, given oil-sands operations are major customers. Another unknown is how the destruction spreads through the economy and affects areas such as consumer spending.