The Financial Post reports in its Monday edition that with oil below $60 (U.S.) a barrel, it is still too early for companies most closely tied to commodity prices to start spending again. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says that Bank of Montreal sees $5.5-billion in issuance from oil and gas pipeline companies like TransCanada in 2017, up from $3.8-billion last year. Exploration and production companies are expected to issue about $1-billion to $2-billion, largely to refinance existing maturities. "A lot of the issuance does come from the pipeline names because of the type of infrastructure they're building," BMO analyst Manmit Pandori told Bloomberg. The explorers and producers are "more in maintenance mode than they are in a broad growth in capital spending." Oil plunged to $26 (U.S.) early last year. As oil rose in the preceding years, the cost of borrowing for Canadian energy companies dropped relative to government debt. Investors now accept a yield spread of around 160 basis points, or 1.6 percentage points, compared with more than 270 in February. That improving picture helped drive energy companies to the best performance on the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Canada corporate index last year.