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When an oil recovery does take hold in Western Canada, it will have to make do with a diminished presence of global oil players.

Companies such as Total S.A., Statoil ASA, Conoco Phillips, BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Repsol S.A. and many others retreated sharply from Canada during the two-year downturn, slashing staff, selling assets and dumping their Calgary office space into an overbuilt market.

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Kevin Birn, Calgary-based director, North America crude oil markets at global energy consultancy IHS Energy, said the pullback will contribute to a slower return to growth for the oilpatch.

“We are calling it the long aftershock of low oil prices,” Birn said. “Since prices collapsed in 2014, there are a number of projects in the system that have proceeded to completion and that will drive growth to 2020. But the lack of investment since 2014 in new projects means … we will have lower supply additions until well on the other side of 2020 (or well into the early part of the next decade).”