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ConocoPhillips Canada will cut up to 300 jobs this fall, while Encana Corp. expects to spend an additional US$200 million on capital later this year to drill more wells.

Oil prices slip below US$45 a barrel on Friday, while Canada’s largest driller says it’s noticed a positive change in customer sentiment in the past six weeks.

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Like a pendulum swinging back and forth, the Alberta economy seems like it’s moving in opposite directions on an hour-by-hour basis.

“Sentiment is quite unsure,” said economist Warren Kirkland of TD Bank, which issued a report this week on the state of Alberta’s recession.

“No one is really sure where the economy is heading.”

For those looking for negative news, there’s plenty of doom and gloom to be mined.

Oil prices dipped 56 cents Friday to US$44.19 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and have struggled since topping $50 a barrel in early June.

In Alberta, the wildfires around Fort McMurray cut oilsands production by more than a million barrels of day at one point, costing producers about $3.5 billion in lost output, according to the Conference Board of Canada.