Critical Mineral Production and Reserve Concentration, 2025

Leading-country shares of world mine production and reserves for five critical minerals; USGS 2025 estimates.

Energy & Commodities

What the Data Shows

This comparison measures how concentrated 2025 mine production and reserves were among leading countries for five critical minerals. Each percentage uses the separate USGS world total for the same mineral and metric. China led natural graphite production with 77.8% of the estimated world total, while Congo (Kinshasa) led cobalt production with 74.2%. Nickel reserves are shown as less than 44.3% for Indonesia because USGS reports the world reserve total as greater than 140 million tonnes.

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Data table

Lithium — Leading producer share 31.7%

Lithium — Largest reserve-holder share 24.9%

Cobalt — Leading producer share 74.2%

Cobalt — Largest reserve-holder share 50.0%

Nickel — Leading producer share 66.7%

Nickel — Largest reserve-holder share <44.3%

Copper — Leading producer share 23.0%

Copper — Largest reserve-holder share 18.4%

Natural graphite — Leading producer share 77.8%

Natural graphite — Largest reserve-holder share 32.3%

Sources

Source 1: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — Lithium

Publisher: United States Geological Survey

Dataset/table: World Mine Production and Reserves

Units: tonnes of lithium content

Date checked: 2026-07-17

Evidence: Provides the 2025 mine-production and reserve country rows and world totals used for lithium.

Source 2: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — Cobalt

Publisher: United States Geological Survey

Dataset/table: World Mine Production and Reserves

Units: tonnes of cobalt content

Date checked: 2026-07-17

Evidence: Provides the 2025 mine-production and reserve country rows and world totals used for cobalt.

Source 3: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — Nickel

Publisher: United States Geological Survey

Dataset/table: World Mine Production and Reserves

Units: tonnes of nickel content

Date checked: 2026-07-17

Evidence: Provides the 2025 mine-production and reserve country rows and world totals used for nickel.

Source 4: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — Copper

Publisher: United States Geological Survey

Dataset/table: World Mine Production and Reserves

Units: thousand tonnes of copper content

Date checked: 2026-07-17

Evidence: Provides the 2025 mine-production and reserve country rows and world totals used for copper.

Source 5: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — Natural Graphite

Publisher: United States Geological Survey

Dataset/table: World Mine Production and Reserves

Units: tonnes

Date checked: 2026-07-17

Evidence: Provides the 2025 mine-production and reserve country rows and world totals used for natural graphite.

Data notes & caveats

USGS marks 2025 mine production as estimated and publishes rounded world totals. Nickel world reserves are greater than 140 million tonnes, so Indonesia's reserve share is less than the calculated 44.3% upper bound.

Methodology

For each mineral, the largest 2025 country production value was divided by the published 2025 world mine-production total. The largest country reserve value was divided by the published world reserve total. Calculations remain within each commodity table and unit.

Source consistency notes

All five rows use the February 2026 USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, 2025 mine-production estimates and the reserve figures in the same commodity tables.

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