NAICS 4861Industry group · 4-digitnational market1 market record

Pipeline transportation of crude oil

SoftwarePipeline Measurement & Hydrocarbon Accounting 486

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in the pipeline transportation of crude oil. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 38
Under 10 employeesA: 42%
Establishments · USA: 649
Employment · USA: 9,703
Payroll · USA: $1.3B

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

1–41129%

5–9513%

10–19821%

20–49513%

50–990—

100–19938%

200–4990—

500+616%

Of 38 Canadian establishments with employees, 42% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.

Where they areA

Alberta2463%

Saskatchewan924%

Ontario25%

Northwest Territories25%

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

Transportation and Warehousing, US · opened 2020

84.1%

1 year

67.4%

3 years

52.7%

5 years

36.1%

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 486, 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.

national competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 486 Pipeline transportation

Regulated infrastructure. Not an entry market.

Who sets the price: Regulated tolls.
The software it runs on: Pipeline control, measurement and hydrocarbon accounting.

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

Crude Oil Trunk PipelineStructure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

A crude line is the best business in the oil patch once it exists: shippers sign long contracts, the toll is approved rather than negotiated, and the barrels have nowhere else to go. Enbridge's Liquids Pipelines segment earned $9,710M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025 on a Mainline that averaged 3.1 million barrels a day and was apportioned for nine months of the year — demand exceeded the pipe [A]. That is the attraction, and it is also the trap. The only new Canadian export line built in a generation, the Trans Mountain expansion, saw its cost estimate rise from $21.4B to $34.2B, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer values the finished asset at $29.6B to $33.4B depending on whether contracts renew [A]. A completed, full, tolled pipeline is worth less than it cost to build, and the owner that absorbed the difference was the federal treasury. Meanwhile the incumbent adds capacity by optimising steel already in the ground: Enbridge sanctioned 150,000 barrels a day of new Mainline capacity for US$1.4B [A], a cost per barrel no greenfield route can approach. The 38 Canadian establishments are not a fragmented field — six employ more than 500 people and the small ones are field offices and feeder systems tied to the same few owners. Regulation is a second wall, but it is not the binding one: a fully permitted line still has to be financed against an incumbent whose next barrel of capacity is nearly free. The measurement and accounting software sold to these operators is screened separately at 486.

NAICS 48614 vendors named12 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 486 Pipeline transportation

Pipeline Measurement & Hydrocarbon AccountingOne thing must be true

binding constraint: market size

Incumbent Quorum Software (Thoma Bravo; Calgary and Houston)

The buyer list is a few hundred midstream operators in North America and each one buys a measurement and allocation system roughly once a decade, usually from the vendor that already holds its gas accounting. Quorum reaches most of them. A better product does not create more pipelines. 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 4863 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.

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
South Bow CorporationPrivate	Pipeline transportation of crude oil4861	$2.0B	1/5
Pembina PipelineNYSE:PBA	Pipeline transportation of crude oil4861	—	2/5
Inter PipelineTSX:IPL	Pipeline transportation of crude oil4861	—	3/5
Plains Midstream CanadaPrivate	Pipeline transportation of crude oil4861	—	4/5
Trans MountainPrivate	Pipeline transportation of crude oil4861	—	5/5

Who works here

The occupations employed in Transportation and warehousing, 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

Mail and message distribution occupations One industry 90.8%

Train crew operating occupations One industry 90.7%

Transportation officers and controllers One industry 75.7%

Transport truck and transit drivers Mostly one sector 65.4%

Managers in transportation and postal and courier services Mostly one sector 63.9%

Taxi, personal service and delivery service drivers Mostly one sector 57.7%

Contractors and supervisors, technical maintenance trades and heavy equipment and transport operators Mostly one sector 22.6%

Water and rail transport operators and labourers and related occupations Mostly one sector 11.4%

Automotive service technicians Mostly one sector 9.1%

Crane operators and water well drillers Mostly one sector 6.6%

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 13.9%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 5.8%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 5.1%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 5%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 3.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 3.7%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 3.3%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 3.1%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 2.7%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.7%

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 4861, and 2 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
48611	Pipeline transportation of crude oil	38	screened at 4861

Alongside it, under 486 Pipeline transportation

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
4862	Pipeline transportation of natural gas	46	Natural Gas Transmission Pipeline
4869	Other pipeline transportation	44	Refined Products & Specialty Pipeline