Mining
The World’s Most Popular Mints: Key Facts and Comparisons
In the precious metals industry, trust is paramount. That’s why if you own any gold or silver bullion, there is a good chance that it comes from one of the few internationally recognized and reputable mints around the world.
In this infographic with JMBullion, we highlight key facts and comparisons on some of the world’s most popular mints, including the United States Mint, the Royal Canadian Mint, Perth Mint, PAMP Suisse, and Sunshine Minting.
Some quick facts on each of the world’s most popular mints:
The United States Mint was founded in 1792, and now has minting operations in Philadelphia, Denver, West Point, and San Francisco. The mint produced more than 17 billion coins for circulation in 2015 for the fastest annual pace since 19.4 billion coins were struck in 2001. Legend holds that George Washington donated some of his personal silver to the Mint for manufacturing early coinage.
The Royal Canadian Mint was founded in 1908 in Ottawa, Canada. It produces over one billion coins per year, with the Silver Maple Leaf as its signature bullion offering. In 2007, the Royal Canadian Mint created the largest coin in the world – a 100 kg, 99.999% pure, $1 million gold bullion coin.
The Perth Mint was founded in 1899 in Perth, Australia. It was originally built to refine metal from the gold rushes occurring in Western Australia, while also distributing sovereigns and half-sovereigns for the British Empire. In 1970, the Mint’s jurisdiction was moved to the State Government of Western Australia. The Australian Kookaburra (1990-), Koala (2007-), and Kangaroo (1990-1993, 2016-) are some of the mint’s most popular products among bullion buyers.
PAMP Suisse, a private mint, was founded in Switzerland in 1977. The mint refines an impressive 450 tonnes of gold annually, and much of the gold used for worldwide jewelry production comes from PAMP. The Mint also produces the popular Fortuna bar, which is available in gold, silver, and platinum, with sizes ranging from 1 gram to 100 oz.
Sunshine Minting is another private mint. Founded in Idaho in 1979, Sunshine mints 70 million ounces of bullion each year, including its version of the popular Silver Buffalo Round. Sunshine Minting is also the primary supplier of one-ounce silver planchets (round metal disks, ready to be struck as coins) to the United States Mint.
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.
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.
Country | Share of Global Reserves | Uranium Reserves (Tonnes) |
---|---|---|
🇦🇺 Australia | 28% | 1.7M |
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan | 13% | 815K |
🇨🇦 Canada | 10% | 589K |
🇷🇺 Russia | 8% | 481K |
🇳🇦 Namibia | 8% | 470K |
🇿🇦 South Africa | 5% | 321K |
🇧🇷 Brazil | 5% | 311K |
🇳🇪 Niger | 5% | 277K |
🇨🇳 China | 4% | 224K |
🇲🇳 Mongolia | 2% | 145K |
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan | 2% | 131K |
🇺🇦 Ukraine | 2% | 107K |
🌍 Rest of World | 9% | 524K |
Total | 100% | 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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