NAICS 4121Industry group · 4-digitregional market1 market record

Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in wholesaling crude oil, liquefied petroleum gases, heating oil and other refined petroleum products and hydrocarbons. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 1,176
Under 10 employeesA: 65%

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

1–446840%

5–929725%

10–1919817%

20–4912911%

50–99514%

100–199182%

200–499131%

500+20%

Of 1,176 Canadian establishments with employees, 65% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Alberta35030%

Ontario22419%

Quebec16714%

Saskatchewan11410%

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

Wholesale Trade, US · opened 2020

82.8%

1 year

64.3%

3 years

51.2%

5 years

34.4%

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 412, 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 412 Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers

A bulk-fuel jobber sells a declining product on a delivered margin. The route density and the customer list are what change hands.

Who sets the price: Refiners' rack price plus a delivered margin.
The software it runs on: Fuel delivery routing, tank monitoring and rack-price management.

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

Propane Distribution BranchOne thing must be true

binding constraint: growth quality

The Fuel Distribution (Jobber) record already screens the bulk gasoline and diesel route and cuts on working capital. This group's average explains why: Canadian petroleum wholesalers booked $377.6B of revenue in 2024 at a 3.9% gross margin and 1.3% operating profit [A], a number dominated by crude and rack-volume marketers that no entrant resembles. The one corner that earns a real margin is delivered propane — rural heating, farm, construction and commercial accounts served from a bulk storage site by bobtail truck. Superior Plus, which delivers propane across Canada from a network of branches, shows both the appeal and the cut. Its Canadian Propane segment made US$273.2M of gross profit on US$626.2M of revenue in 2025, a 44% margin, and US$100.4M of adjusted EBITDA [A]. But that EBITDA grew 2%, revenue grew 1%, and volume grew 2% to 337 million gallons in a year that was 7% colder than the one before — while adjusted gross profit from propane distribution fell 1% on lower unit margins [A]. When an operator on that scale needs a cold winter to stand still, the product is in slow retreat: efficiency, heat pumps and gas-line extension take customers at the edges. For 2026 Superior guides the whole group to about 2% adjusted EBITDA growth, on weather assumed back to the five-year average [A]. An entrant would spend on storage, trucks and customer tanks — Superior put US$38.8M of capital into the Canadian segment last year — to win accounts one at a time from incumbents in a pool that is not getting larger. Growth in this trade is bought, by acquiring retiring independents, and that is a consolidator's game.

NAICS 41215 vendors named13 sourced figuresOpen →

Filed above — wider than this industry

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 412 Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers

Fuel Distribution (Jobber)Structure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

A jobber's balance sheet carries fuel inventory priced daily against customers who pay in 30 days, so working capital swings with the commodity and a bad month is a price move rather than a sales problem. Trucks, tanks and environmental liability sit underneath. The consolidators buying this space have hedging desks and credit lines an independent cannot match.

NAICS 4124 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: Fuel delivery routing, tank monitoring and rack-price management.

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
Superior PlusTSX:SPB	Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers4121	$2.5B	1/4
Suburban Propane PartnersNYSE:SPH	Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers4121	$1.4B	2/4
AmeriGas and FerrellgasPrivate	Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers4121	—	3/4
Federated Co-operatives and the farm co-opsPrivate	Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers4121	—	4/4

Who works here

The occupations employed in Wholesale trade, 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

Retail and wholesale trade managers One industry 16.6%

Retail salespersons and non-technical wholesale trade sales and account representatives Mostly one sector 9.2%

Labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities Mostly one sector 8.7%

Managers in transportation and postal and courier services Mostly one sector 8.5%

Crane operators and water well drillers Mostly one sector 7.3%

Taxi, personal service and delivery service drivers Mostly one sector 6.8%

Supervisors, processing and manufacturing occupations Mostly one sector 6.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 5.8%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 5.5%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 5.3%

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

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 10.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 7.9%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 6.7%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 6.2%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 6%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 5.1%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 3.3%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 2.8%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.5%

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 4121, and 2 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
41211	Petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons merchant wholesalers	1,176	screened at 4121