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Canada’s biggest oil producers are sitting on a near-record pile of cash, giving them the resources to keep investing and manage debt while weathering the worst price rout in a generation.

The five largest oil producers including Suncor Energy Inc. and Cenovus Energy Inc. have a combined $8.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents, an increase of 7.6 per cent from a year earlier and more than twice the levels seen during 2009 downturn. The figures, which are little changed from a record $9 billion in 2014, don’t include the proceeds from Imperial Oil Ltd.’s recent sale of its Esso-brand gas stations for $2.8 billion.

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“Sitting on cash and a healthy balance sheet has become a competitive advantage,” Amir Arif, an analyst at Cormark Securities Inc. in Calgary, said by phone. “These guys still have a lot of capital they need to spend.”

Divestitures, cost cutting, equity raises, and dividend cuts have helped bolster balance sheets as Canadian oil producers buckle down for the “lower for longer” prices Suncor Chief Executive Officer Steven Williams has described. Compared with the last downturn when commodity prices made a quick recovery, the industry isn’t betting on a return to high prices and needs the money to keep their operations expanding.

Having cash is an important survival tactic as commodity markets remain volatile despite the recent recovery that saw oil prices rebound toward US$40 from more than a 12-year low of about US$26 a barrel in February. West Texas Intermediate is expected to average $39.50 this year, according to the estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The North American benchmark advanced as much as 85 cents US to US$37.19 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Wednesday.