Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction

The pre-screen called coal a structurally declining commodity, and that is only half right, which matters for the cut. Thermal coal is ending — Ottawa remains committed to phasing out unabated coal-fired power by 2030 — but 67% of the 42.6 million tonnes Canada mined in 2024 was metallurgical coal, and the country exported 36 million tonnes worth C$9.7B, C$8.9B of it metallurgical [A]. Steelmaking coal out of the Elk Valley is a first-rate export business. The cut is the ticket price. In July 2024 Glencore paid US$6.9B in cash for 77% of Teck's steelmaking coal unit [A] and the seller was exiting a profitable business, not a failing one. That is the only door into this industry: buying existing permitted production, at a scale measured in billions, from the few owners who have it. The shape of the business count says the same thing. There are 29 establishments in the country and ten of them employ 200 or more people; the US average is about 80 employees per establishment. Nothing here is small, a new mine needs rail and tidewater as well as a pit, and the greenfield permit is a multi-year federal-provincial review with a live chance of refusal. Mining software for this sector is screened separately.

Most of this group by count is sand, gravel and crushed stone; the rest — potash, salt, diamonds, gypsum — is nine-figure mining that was not examined. The record at Ready-Mix Concrete & Aggregates argued from structure that the permit is the business. This one tests that with a price series, and the test holds. Vulcan Materials shipped 226.8 million tons in 2025 at a freight-adjusted US$21.98 a ton, up 4%, and kept US$11.33 of that as cash gross profit, up 7% [A]. A commodity that holds a better-than-50% cash margin and raises price through a soft construction year is not behaving like a commodity; it is behaving like a local franchise rationed by licence. Ontario shows the rationing: 3,565 licences on private land produced 167.9 million tonnes in 2023, down 3.2% [A] — yet only 348 Ontario establishments are classified to this code, so a large share of those licences evidently sit inside road builders and concrete producers who mine for their own jobs. That is the entrant's problem from both ends. A new licence means years of rezoning, hearings and appeals with no revenue; an existing one is bid for by Vulcan-type consolidators and by the local paving contractor who needs the stone more than any financial buyer does. 53% of the 1,028 establishments have fewer than ten employees, and they are mostly families who got their licence decades ago.

The existing 213 record screens the software; this one screens the service business itself, and it is one of the most reachable industrial codes in the country. 62% of the 5,185 establishments have one to four employees and 59% are in Alberta — incorporated wellsite supervisors, a vac truck, a hot-shot, a small rental fleet. A trade ticket, a truck and a master service agreement are enough to start. The cut is what the work is attached to. Precision Drilling, the largest Canadian driller, turned C$1,844M of 2025 revenue into C$490M of adjusted EBITDA and C$3.1M of net earnings after C$263M of capital spending [A]: the iron eats the margin even at the top. Its release puts the industry's average active land rig count at 176 in 2025, down from 186, while the contractors' association counts a member fleet of 365 drilling rigs and forecasts 5,709 wells for 2026 against 5,548 — its own word is that activity will hold steady [B]. Roughly half the fleet is parked in an average week. Producers have learned to grow output with fewer, longer wells, so barrels rise while service days do not, and the customer — a concentrated group of producers — sets the rate card and can drop a vendor with a phone call. Small operators survive on relationships and low overhead, but there is no growth to enter into. Mineral exploration drilling and mine-site services, also in this code, were not examined.