NAICS 2121Industry group · 4-digitinternational market1 market record

Coal mining

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in mining bituminous and lignite coal by underground mining, and auger mining, strip mining, culm bank mining and other surface mining. Mining operations and preparation plants (also known as cleaning plants and washeries), whether or not such plants are operated in conjunction with mine sites, are included. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 29
Under 10 employeesA: 31%
Establishments · USA: 501
Employment · USA: 39,841
Payroll · USA: $4.0B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–4621%

5–9310%

10–1927%

20–49414%

50–9913%

100–199310%

200–499517%

500+517%

Of 29 Canadian establishments with employees, 31% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.

Where they areA

British Columbia1759%

Alberta931%

Nova Scotia27%

Saskatchewan13%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction, US · opened 2020

75.4%

1 year

60%

3 years

48.5%

5 years

24.5%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 212, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

international competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 212 Mining and quarrying (except oil and gas)

Decade-long permitting and nine-figure capital. Aggregates and quarrying are the exception: local, haul-distance-bound and occasionally reachable.

Who sets the price: Global metal and mineral markets.
The software it runs on: Mine planning, geology modelling, fleet dispatch and safety systems.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreened

Coal Mine DevelopmentStructure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

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.

NAICS 21214 vendors named10 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Mine planning, geology modelling, fleet dispatch and safety systems.

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 4

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
GlencoreGLNCY	Coal mining2121	—	1/4
Conuma ResourcesPrivate	Coal mining2121	—	2/4
Nippon SteelNSSMY	Coal mining2121	—	3/4
POSCOPrivate	Coal mining2121	—	4/4

Who works here

The occupations employed in Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Underground miners, oil and gas drillers and related occupations One industry 83.4%

Contractors and supervisors, mining, oil and gas One industry 82.6%

Mine service workers and operators in oil and gas drilling One industry 82.1%

Mine and oil and gas drilling, services and related labourers One industry 79.4%

Managers in natural resources production and fishing Mostly one sector 60.6%

Natural resources engineers Mostly one sector 46.5%

Operators, drillers and blasters Mostly one sector 16.1%

Manufacturing and processing engineers Mostly one sector 8.1%

Crane operators and water well drillers Mostly one sector 4.8%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 4%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 5.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 3%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 1.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 1.4%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 1.4%

Other technical trades Across the economy 1.4%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 1.3%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 1.1%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 2121, and 4 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
21211	Coal mining	29	screened at 2121

Alongside it, under 212 Mining and quarrying (except oil and gas)

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
2122	Metal ore mining	197	Mining Operations & Geology Software
2123	Non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying	1,028	Aggregate Pit & Quarry