NAICS 4869Industry group · 4-digitnational market1 market record

Other pipeline transportation

SoftwarePipeline Measurement & Hydrocarbon Accounting 486

This industry group comprises establishments, not classified to any other industry group, primarily engaged in pipeline transportation. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 44
Under 10 employeesA: 82%
Establishments · USA: 722
Employment · USA: 8,985
Payroll · USA: $1.2B

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

1–42966%

5–9716%

10–1925%

20–4925%

50–9925%

100–19912%

200–4990—

500+12%

Of 44 Canadian establishments with employees, 82% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.

Where they areA

Alberta2045%

Ontario920%

British Columbia511%

Quebec49%

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

Refined Products & Specialty PipelineOne thing must be true

binding constraint: market size

What is left in the pipeline subsector after crude and gas: lines carrying gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from refineries to terminals, and an 'all other' tail of carbon dioxide, slurry and similar single-purpose lines. The asset is attractive for the same reason the trunk lines are — once built it is the cheapest way to move the product and nobody builds a second one beside it. The cut is that the number of corridors is fixed by the number of refineries, and nobody is building refineries. The clearest price signal is American: ONEOK bought Magellan Midstream, owner of the longest refined products pipeline system in the United States with access to nearly half the country's refining capacity, in a transaction valued at approximately $18.8B including assumed debt, paying a 22% premium [A]. That is how capacity changes hands in this industry — a gas company buying an existing network whole. Two years on, ONEOK's FY2025 10-K shows what it bought as a working segment: Refined Products and Crude revenue of US$13,039M and segment adjusted EBITDA of US$2,177M, on 9,800 miles of refined products pipelines, 53 products terminals and 100 MMBbl of storage [A]. The one place new pipe is being laid is inside that system — ONEOK reports it is building a 230-mile line from Scott City, Kansas to the Denver airport to add 35 MBbl/d of capacity to its own network [A] — an extension by the corridor's owner, not a second corridor beside it. In Canada the group is 44 establishments, 29 of them with fewer than five employees and one above 500. That shape is a handful of real systems, generally owned by or contracted to the refiners that ship on them, plus small legal entities holding a single line. An entrant has no route to a first customer: the shipper already owns the pipe or is contracted to it, and product demand gives no reason to add a corridor. The specialty tail — carbon dioxide lines for sequestration are the live example — is policy-created, project-financed and was not examined here. The software sold into this branch is screened separately at 486.

NAICS 48694 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.

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 · 3

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
Alberta Carbon Trunk LinePrivate	Other pipeline transportation4869	—	1/3
ONEOKNYSE:OKE	Other pipeline transportation4869	—	2/3
Trans-Northern PipelinesPrivate	Other pipeline transportation4869	—	3/3

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. But note the shape of this industry: 82% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

2 rows sit directly beneath 4869, and 4 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
48691	Pipeline transportation of refined petroleum products	16	screened at 4869
48699	All other pipeline transportation	28	screened at 4869

Alongside it, under 486 Pipeline transportation

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
4861	Pipeline transportation of crude oil	38	Crude Oil Trunk Pipeline
4862	Pipeline transportation of natural gas	46	Natural Gas Transmission Pipeline