NAICS 2212Industry group · 4-digitregional market1 market record

Natural gas distribution

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in the distribution of natural or synthetic gas to the ultimate consumers through a system of mains. Gas marketers or brokers, that arrange the sale of natural gas over distribution systems operated by others, are included. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 292
Under 10 employeesA: 50%
Establishments · USA: 2,420
Employment · USA: 91,556
Payroll · USA: $10.3B

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

1–49533%

5–95017%

10–195318%

20–494515%

50–993111%

100–199103%

200–49941%

500+41%

Of 292 Canadian establishments with employees, 50% have fewer than ten — weighted toward mid-sized establishments.

Where they areA

Ontario9533%

Alberta8930%

British Columbia5318%

Quebec217%

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

Utilities, US · opened 2020

84.2%

1 year

69.7%

3 years

61.6%

5 years

47.2%

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 221, 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 competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 221 Utilities

Regulated monopoly or near it. The openings are at the edge — independent generation, water and wastewater operations, services sold to utilities.

Who sets the price: Regulators, through rate cases; merchant generators take the pool price.
The software it runs on: Billing and customer information systems, metering, outage and asset management — long procurement cycles, few vendors.

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

Gas Distribution Franchise & Gas MarketingStructure decides

binding constraint: entry cost + regulatory drag

A gas utility is the kind of business everyone would like to own: a captive customer base, an allowed return, and nobody building a second set of mains down the same street. That is exactly why it cannot be entered. The franchise is exclusive by territory, so the only door is buying one, and the price is public. Enbridge paid US$14.0B — US$9.4B in cash plus US$4.6B of assumed debt — for three US gas utilities, about 1.3 times their rate base [A], creating a platform of roughly seven million customers; its Ontario utility alone serves over four million. A regulator sets the return on rate base, and the buyer pays a premium to rate base — the arithmetic only works for an owner whose cost of capital is lower than the allowed return, which is a description of a pension fund or an Enbridge, not an entrant. The small end of the count is not an opening either. Alberta has 89 of the 292 establishments, which lines up with the 82 member utilities of the Federation of Alberta Gas Co-ops — 54 co-ops, 16 towns and villages, 5 counties and 7 First Nations [B]: member-owned or municipal, and not for sale. The one part of the code without pipes, gas marketing, needs a provincial licence to sell to small consumers and resells a commodity against the utility's own regulated supply. Utility billing software is screened separately.

NAICS 22124 vendors named11 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: Billing and customer information systems, metering, outage and asset management — long procurement cycles, few vendors.

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 · 5

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
EnbridgeTSX:ENB	Natural gas distribution2212	—	1/5
ATCO GasPrivate	Natural gas distribution2212	—	2/5
ÉnergirPrivate	Natural gas distribution2212	—	3/5
FortisBCPrivate	Natural gas distribution2212	—	4/5
Licensed gas marketersPrivate	Natural gas distribution2212	—	5/5

Who works here

The occupations employed in Utilities, 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

Electrical, electronics and computer engineers Mostly one sector 8.7%

Technical electrical trades and electrical power line and telecommunications workers Mostly one sector 8.5%

Supervisors, processing and manufacturing occupations Mostly one sector 8.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 6.3%

Civil and mechanical engineers Mostly one sector 4.8%

Water and rail transport operators and labourers and related occupations Mostly one sector 3.5%

Manufacturing and processing engineers Mostly one sector 3.2%

Plumbers, pipefitters and gas fitters One industry 2.4%

Technical occupations in architecture, drafting, surveying, geomatics and meteorology Mostly one sector 2.2%

Managers in engineering, architecture, science and information systems Mostly one sector 2.1%

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 occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 5.8%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 4.6%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 1.7%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 1.3%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 1.3%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 1.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 1.2%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 1.2%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers 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 2212, and 2 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
22121	Natural gas distribution	292	screened at 2212

Alongside it, under 221 Utilities

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
2211	Electric power generation, transmission and distribution	750	Utility Metering, Billing & Customer Systems Renewable Energy & Solar Project Software Grid Interconnection & Large-Load Power Intelligence
2213	Water, sewage and other systems	374	Water, Sewage & Other Systems