M. Garside
Research lead covering energy, chemicals & resources
Mining industry worldwide - statistics & facts
Numerous industries worldwide depend on the supply of mineral commodities from underground. The dependency of various high-tech-industries on rare earths is a recent issue – coal, on the other hand, is still one of the leading global energy resources. Consequently, the mining sector is pivotal to the world’s economy. The revenue of the top 40 global mining companies, which represent a vast majority of the whole industry amounted to a record 943 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, and dropped down to an estimated 792 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. The net profit margin of the mining industry decreased from 25 percent in 2010 to 11 percent in 2023.
Leading mineral producing countries
In terms of volume, the most exploited commodities worldwide are iron ore, coal, potash, and copper. China, Indonesia, and India are the largest coal producing countries. China is also the third-largest producer of iron ore. Indeed, China has become the leading mining country for many commodities, especially for the highly demanded rare earths, of which China accounted for nearly 69 percent of the global production in 2023. Additionally, China is the world’s leading gold mining country.The world's most major mining companies
The mining industry’s leading companies based on market capitalization as of May 2024 were BHP from Australia and Rio Tinto from the United Kingdom. Following them were two United States-based mining companies: Southern Copper Corp, and Freeport-McMoran, respectively. BHP had a market capitalization of nearly 146 billion U.S. dollars at that time. Glencore was the leading mining company worldwide based on revenuein 2023, having amounted to almost 218 billion U.S. dollars that year. However, a large share of Glencore’s revenue comes from commodity trading. In 2023, four of the world's 10 leading mining companies based on revenue were based in the UK, while another four were based in China.
