CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - For the energy industry, the past 12 months have brought a parade of good, bad and downright ugly headlines. Surprisingly, Bay Street has responded with marked indifference, or so it would seem.

Big-ticket takeovers, shale gas discoveries, oil spills and environmental battles: None of those stories could tell investors whether demand for oil would trend up or down.

That may prove a good thing for those who could afford to sit tight. Energy companies, now with attractive valuations, have used the lull to set to the stage for a strong rebound once the spark finally comes.

But only solid economic evidence of a sustained economic recovery or a double-dip recession will get things rolling, analysts say. To date, it has been difficult to make a convincing case for either scenario.

"What would help to break things out to the upside is if we got some more definitive signs of further demand improvement in the U.S., China, Southeast Asia, or if there was some clear indication that non-OPEC supply growth was slowing and perhaps going negative in 2011," analyst Martin King of FirstEnergy Capital Corp said.

"But right now I don't see any of those things happening."

Canadian energy stocks have been stuck for nearly a year as crude prices have held to a flat track amid economic uncertainty and high inventories. A year ago, oil was in the $70s per barrel. It settled on Friday at $75.39 a barrel.

Oil weakened last week as US data showed that the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped to the highest in almost six months.

That only added to concerns about weaker global demand after the US Federal Reserve painted a picture of a fragile recovery and Chinese data showed sputtering factory growth.

Analysts warned against getting too wrapped up in employment stats when trying to gauge the outlook for oil.

"Demand is going to be related to some degree by job growth, but for me, when people look at jobs data that's just another data point they use to draw retail money back and forth from sector to sector," King said.