NAICS 213117Canadian industry · 6-digitregional market

Contract drilling (except oil and gas)

SoftwareOilfield Services & Well Data Management 213

This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in diamond, test, prospect and other types of drilling, for minerals, other than oil and gas, on a contract or fee basis. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 193
Under 10 employeesA: 47%

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

1–46433%

5–92714%

10–193217%

20–493719%

50–99147%

100–199116%

200–49974%

500+11%

Of 193 Canadian establishments with employees, 47% have fewer than ten — weighted toward mid-sized establishments.

Where they areA

British Columbia4724%

Ontario4423%

Quebec3317%

Alberta2312%

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.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 213, 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.

regional competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 213 Support activities for mining, and oil and gas extraction

Revenue is a geared bet on the commodity cycle: crews and iron idle when producers cut capex, and the customer sets terms in both directions.

Who sets the price: Producers, through bid work that tracks drilling activity.
The software it runs on: Field ticketing, well data, equipment and crew scheduling.

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.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 2131 Support activities for mining, and oil and gas extraction covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 2131

Oilfield Service ContractingOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

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.

NAICS 21314 vendors named8 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.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 213 Support activities for mining, and oil and gas extraction

Oilfield Services & Well Data ManagementOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

Incumbent Peloton (WellView, Canadian — Calgary) and Enverus (OpenInvoice, OpenTicket)

Field ticketing and well data spend tracks the rig count, which tracks the strip — the same cyclicality the oil-and-gas operations record cut on at 2111, and it hits a small vendor harder because the contraction lands mid-contract. Peloton and Enverus also arrive with the operator's data already in their hands. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor named on this record is private, or sits inside a parent that does not break the line out, so no revenue floor can be built and the market size is genuinely unknown rather than estimated.

NAICS 2134 vendors namedOpen →

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.

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 →

Alongside this industry

This is the most specific level NAICS defines. The other industries under 21311 are its nearest neighbours.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
213111	Oil and gas contract drilling	474	screened at 2131
213118	Services to oil and gas extraction	3,266	screened at 2131
213119	Other support activities for mining	1,252	screened at 2131