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“We have a completely different picture going forward than we had assumed in the past,” he said. “We didn’t think it had that momentum to drop (that much).

Owusu said the board expects oil prices to average $56 for 2015, with a small rebound in the spring. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude was trading below $50 US on Monday.

Alberta has experienced negative economic growth only once since 1988, when it declined by 4.2 per cent in 2009. Calgary has seen a decline in its economy twice in that period — by 1.9 per cent in 1989 and by 4.1 per cent in 2009.

Over that period, the highest rate of growth for Calgary was 7.9 per cent in 1997 and 8.1 per cent for the province in 1997.

Last year, Calgary’s economy grew by 4.4 per cent while Alberta’s rose 4.0 per cent.

“I would think that based on how strong the performance was for the (energy) industry for the majority of last year versus where we’re likely to spend most of the time this year, a contraction is probably within the realm of reality,” said Adam Legge, president and chief executive of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s reflective of the low commodity price environment and less activity happening and less investment happening.”

Todd Hirsch, chief economist with ATB Financial, said forecasters are moving to either much weaker growth or contraction in Alberta.

“The Conference Board, I think they’re probably the outlier at this point with the forecast for the deepest contraction,” he said. “But we still think that energy prices are going to rebound somewhere in the second half of the year and Alberta will avoid an outright contraction.”