Top Oil Pipeline Stocks to Watch: America's Energy Infrastructure Leaders

The United States dominates global energy infrastructure with an unparalleled system of 1.38 million miles of oil pipeline stocks and related transportation networks—a scale that dwarfs every other nation. For context, Russia ranks second with roughly 170,000 miles, making America’s pipeline ecosystem more than eight times larger. These physical networks represent the critical arteries connecting oil extraction sites to refineries, processing facilities, and international export terminals. Companies operating oil pipeline stocks stand at the heart of this infrastructure, collecting fees as energy commodities flow through their systems. This makes pipeline operators attractive to income-seeking investors who value both steady cash flows and potential capital appreciation.

Why Oil Pipeline Stocks Matter: The Backbone of Energy Distribution

Oil pipeline stocks represent a unique investment category that bridges upstream energy production and downstream consumption. Unlike volatile commodity prices, the economics of operating pipelines emphasize stability. Companies generate revenue primarily through volume-based fees rather than commodity ownership, creating predictable cash flows regardless of whether crude prices surge or decline. This fee-based model enables oil pipeline stocks to maintain consistent distributions to shareholders, often outpacing traditional dividend-paying stocks.

The pipeline industry’s competitive advantages are compelling. Transportation via pipeline is dramatically cheaper than alternatives like trucking or rail, creating natural moats for established operators. With billions of dollars in annual free cash flow, leading oil pipeline stocks can simultaneously fund dividend payments to investors and finance expansion projects. This combination—income plus growth—historically produces market-beating total returns, making oil pipeline stocks a cornerstone holding for value and income portfolios.

The Strategic Advantage: Why Specialists Win

Across North America, the 10 largest pipeline companies share a common origin story. Rather than building randomly or pursuing every opportunity, these operators first dominated specific market niches. Enbridge specialized in connecting Canadian oil sands to U.S. markets. Kinder Morgan built the largest natural gas network in North America. Plains All American focused on crude oil corridors from Western Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Each company’s original strategy provided the foundation and cash generation necessary to diversify into adjacent pipeline segments.

This focused growth strategy explains why oil pipeline stocks became investment-grade opportunities. Companies that mastered one segment—whether crude oil transportation, natural gas transmission, or natural gas liquid handling—could leverage that expertise, customer relationships, and financial strength into broader midstream empires. The largest among them now operate integrated systems where a single energy molecule might pass through five to seven different company assets en route to consumers, with the operator collecting fees at each stage.

The Integrated Giants: Diversified Pipeline Leaders

Enbridge stands as North America’s largest energy infrastructure operator, commanding the world’s most complex crude oil transportation system. The company moves approximately 25% of all North American crude oil—including 63% of Canadian exports bound for U.S. refineries. Its natural gas operations transport roughly 18% of U.S. consumption, complemented by one of the continent’s largest gas distribution utilities. By 2019, the company’s earnings split across multiple segments: crude oil pipelines (50%), gas transmission (30%), gas utilities (15%), and renewable energy assets (5%). The company’s 2019-2020 expansion budget of CA$16-21 billion annually positions it to maintain its market leadership and fund consistent dividend growth.

Energy Transfer operates the largest and most diversified MLP structure, boasting more than 86,000 miles of pipeline networks throughout the United States. Its integrated platform handles natural gas, crude oil, natural gas liquids, and refined products from all major U.S. supply basins to principal market centers. Unlike commodity traders, Energy Transfer’s fee-based business model insulates it from price volatility, enabling it to distribute roughly half of annual cash flow to investors while retaining capital for organic growth and acquisitions.

Enterprise Products Partners dominates the natural gas liquid (NGL) infrastructure segment, where it generated over 50% of earnings from NGL-related services as of 2018. The company’s integrated network enables complex value extraction: energy molecules often pass through multiple Enterprise facilities—from gathering through processing to separation to transportation—with the MLP collecting fees at each stage. With industry analysts projecting over $50 billion in required NGL infrastructure investment through 2035, Enterprise possesses substantial runways for cash flow and distribution growth.

Regional Specialists: Focused Pipeline Operators

Beyond the integrated giants, several large pipeline stocks concentrate their efforts on specific geographic regions or commodity types, achieving dominant positions in their chosen segments.

TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) commands roughly 25% of North America’s natural gas transportation, with its most recent major acquisition—Columbia Pipeline Group in 2016—substantially strengthening its U.S. operations. The company also operates the Keystone Pipeline System, moving 20% of Western Canadian crude exports to U.S. refineries. With CA$30 billion in secured expansion projects as of 2019 and an additional CA$20 billion under development, TC Energy possesses highly visible earnings growth visibility through at least 2023.

Kinder Morgan operates North America’s largest natural gas pipeline system, transporting 40% of U.S. natural gas consumption. Its strategic positioning in Texas and Louisiana—connecting the Permian Basin and Haynesville shale to coastal LNG and petrochemical facilities—positions it to capitalize on projected energy demand growth. The company’s gas infrastructure segment historically accounts for over 60% of annual earnings, with $5.7 billion of expansion projects underway as of mid-2019, roughly 80% gas-focused.

Williams Companies specializes in natural gas pipelines, handling roughly 30% of U.S. volumes. Its crown jewel, the Transco system, represents the largest interstate gas pipeline by volume, stretching roughly 1,800 miles from South Texas to New York City. The company has invested aggressively to expand Transco’s capacity—nearly doubling it from 8.5 billion cubic feet daily in 2009 to 16.7 BCF/d by 2018. Williams also operates gathering and processing assets in the prolific Marcellus and Utica shale formations, positioning it for substantial organic growth in capturing and transporting newly drilled gas.

The MLP Model: Tax-Advantaged Pipeline Investment Structures

Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) represent a distinct investment vehicle where oil pipeline stocks often structure themselves. MLPs enjoy exemption from federal corporate income taxes, with distributions flowing directly to investors. This structural advantage has enabled several midstream companies to achieve remarkable scale.

MPLX originated as Marathon Petroleum’s subsidiary but has evolved into a self-sustaining midstream company providing both logistics services to Marathon and “wellhead-to-water” solutions for independent producers. Its integrated Permian Basin network enables energy companies to transport production from wells directly to Gulf Coast export facilities. The company has grown through a combination of acquisitions and organic expansion, establishing itself as a full-service midstream operator.

ONEOK specializes in natural gas liquid infrastructure, deriving approximately 60% of earnings from NGL operations. The company solved a critical regional problem in North Dakota’s Bakken shale: capturing and processing the gas produced alongside crude oil extraction. Where producers historically flared (burned) 35% of associated gas due to infrastructure constraints, ONEOK’s systems reduced that figure to approximately 15% by 2019 despite nearly tripling regional output. With more than $6 billion of projects under construction in 2019, primarily targeting liquids-rich gas in North Dakota and Oklahoma’s STACK/SCOOP play, ONEOK possesses substantial earnings growth visibility.

Plains All American Pipeline focuses exclusively on oil-centric infrastructure, operating networks spanning Western Canada through the U.S. Gulf Coast and including significant Permian Basin exposure. The company’s long-term, fee-based contracts with customers provide highly predictable cash flows supporting its substantial dividend. Industry projections calling for $321 billion in cumulative oil infrastructure investment through 2035—with substantial portions devoted to Permian Basin capacity expansion—position Plains All American for meaningful long-term growth.

Regional Leader: Western Canada’s Pipeline Giant

Pembina Pipeline operates an integrated system focused on Western Canada’s oil sands production and liquids-rich shale formations. The company processes natural gas from the Montney and Duvernay shale regions while transporting crude bitumen from oil sands facilities. It also maintains substantial NGL fractionation capacity—the largest in Western Canada for processing raw NGLs into pure components. With CA$5.5 billion of expansion projects under construction and more than CA$10 billion under development (including an LNG export project on Oregon’s coast), Pembina maintains one of the few pipeline stocks offering monthly dividend distributions to shareholders rather than quarterly payments.

The Investment Case: Why Pipeline Stocks Deserve Investor Attention

The underlying thesis supporting oil pipeline stocks rests on fundamental economics. America’s energy infrastructure requires continuous capital investment to support production growth, meet demand expansion, and replace aging systems. The industry’s fee-based operating model insulates pipeline operators from commodity price volatility while providing stable, predictable cash flows. These cash flows fund both investor distributions and organic growth, creating a compound wealth-building mechanism unavailable in many traditional stocks.

Ten years of industry data demonstrates that the largest pipeline stocks grew not through random expansion but through disciplined focus on specific market segments, followed by strategic diversification. This approach—building dominant positions in niches before expanding—created companies capable of financing substantial dividend increases while simultaneously funding multi-billion-dollar annual capital programs.

Looking forward, energy demand projections, aging infrastructure requiring replacement, and the energy transition’s ongoing demand for stable baseload power and refined products suggest that well-positioned oil pipeline stocks should continue generating attractive returns for patient investors prioritizing income alongside moderate capital appreciation. The combination of stable cash flows, predictable distributions, and growth optionality makes these infrastructure operators central to many investment portfolios.