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Visualizing the World’s Largest Iron Ore Producers

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Visualizing the World’s Largest Iron Ore Producers

Visualizing the World’s Largest Iron Ore Producers

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Iron ore comprised roughly 93% of the 2.7 billion tonnes of metals mined in 2021.

It is used primarily (98%) to make steel, with the remaining 2% becoming magnets, auto parts, and catalysts.

Using data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the above infographic lists the world’s largest iron ore producers in 2021.

Pilbara and Carajás Iron Ore

Iron is the fourth most abundant element on the planet after oxygen, silicon, and aluminum, constituting about 5% of the Earth’s crust.

Australia produced 35% of the iron ore mined last year. Almost 90% of identified iron ore resources in the country occur in Western Australia, especially in the Pilbara region.

The large and dry region is known for its Aboriginal peoples and also for its red earth as a result of a chemical reaction of iron exposed to air and water. The three major Pilbara iron ore producers are also among the top mining companies in the world: BHP Group, Rio Tinto Ltd, and Fortescue Metals.

Country2021 Production (Tonnes)
🇦🇺 Australia900,000,000
🇧🇷 Brazil380,000,000
🇨🇳 China360,000,000
🇮🇳 India240,000,000
🇷🇺 Russia100,000,000
🇺🇦 Ukraine81,000,000
🇨🇦 Canada68,000,000
🇿🇦 South Africa61,000,000
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan64,000,000
🇮🇷 Iran50,000,000
🇺🇸 United States46,000,000
🇸🇪 Sweden40,000,000
🇨🇱 Chile19,000,000
🇲🇽 Mexico17,000,000
🇵🇪 Peru16,000,000
🇹🇷 Turkey16,000,000
🌐 Other countries90,000,000

After Australia, Brazil is the second biggest producer, with iron ore accounting for 80% of the country’s mining exports.

Brazil’s biggest public company, Vale, is the world’s largest producer of iron ore and nickel. The company runs the Carajás mine, the largest iron ore mine in the world. Located in the state of Pará, in the north of the country, the mine is operated as an open-pit mine and is estimated to contain roughly 7.2 billion metric tons of iron ore.

Together, Australia and Brazil dominate the world’s iron ore exports, each having about one-third of total exports.

China is the largest consumer of iron ore, used to feed its steel industry.

Despite being the third largest producer, China still imports around 80% of the iron ore it uses each year. The country brought in 1.12 billion tonnes of the commodity last year.

Iron Ore’s Role in the Green Economy

Iron ore demand is expected to rise in the coming years as steel plays a crucial role in producing and distributing energy.

Steel is used extensively in agriculture, solar and wind power, and also in infrastructure for hydroelectric.

Furthermore, steel is used for the production of transformers, generators, and electric motors, along with ships, trucks, and trains.

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Uranium

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium reserves by country, with 3 countries accounting for more than half of total reserves.

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A cropped chart visualizing the distribution of the global uranium reserves, by country.

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

There can be a tendency to believe that uranium deposits are scarce from the critical role it plays in generating nuclear energy, along with all the costs and consequences related to the field.

But uranium is actually fairly plentiful: it’s more abundant than gold and silver, for example, and about as present as tin in the Earth’s crust.

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium resources by country, as of 2021. Figures come from the World Nuclear Association, last updated on August 2023.

Ranked: Uranium Reserves By Country (2021)

Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada have the largest shares of available uranium resources—accounting for more than 50% of total global reserves.

But within these three, Australia is the clear standout, with more than 1.7 million tonnes of uranium discovered (28% of the world’s reserves) currently. Its Olympic Dam mine, located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide, is the the largest single deposit of uranium in the world—and also, interestingly, the fourth largest copper deposit.

Despite this, Australia is only the fourth biggest uranium producer currently, and ranks fifth for all-time uranium production.

CountryShare of Global
Reserves
Uranium Reserves (Tonnes)
🇦🇺 Australia28%1.7M
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan13%815K
🇨🇦 Canada10%589K
🇷🇺 Russia8%481K
🇳🇦 Namibia8%470K
🇿🇦 South Africa5%321K
🇧🇷 Brazil5%311K
🇳🇪 Niger5%277K
🇨🇳 China4%224K
🇲🇳 Mongolia2%145K
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan2%131K
🇺🇦 Ukraine2%107K
🌍 Rest of World9%524K
Total100%6M

Figures are rounded.

Outside the top three, Russia and Namibia both have roughly the same amount of uranium reserves: about 8% each, which works out to roughly 470,000 tonnes.

South Africa, Brazil, and Niger all have 5% each of the world’s total deposits as well.

China completes the top 10, with a 3% share of uranium reserves, or about 224,000 tonnes.

A caveat to this is that current data is based on known uranium reserves that are capable of being mined economically. The total amount of the world’s uranium is not known exactly—and new deposits can be found all the time. In fact the world’s known uranium reserves increased by about 25% in the last decade alone, thanks to better technology that improves exploration efforts.

Meanwhile, not all uranium deposits are equal. For example, in the aforementioned Olympic Dam, uranium is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining occurring at the same site. In South Africa, it emerges as a byproduct during treatment of ores in the gold mining process. Orebodies with high concentrations of two substances can increase margins, as costs can be shared for two different products.

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