Iron Ore Production By Country

Iron ore is found in rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. A critical resource globally, natural ores containing over 60% iron can be directly fed into iron-making blast furnaces. So important is iron ore that it is considered nearly as integral to the global economy as oil.

Insights gleaned from the data include:

• Australia is the leading producer of iron ore, amassing over half a million kilotons in production. In fact, its output so vast, it is twice as large as the second-ranked nation, Brazil.
• The Top 5 of iron ore producers are evenly split between Asia (Australia, China, India) and the Americas and Europe (Brazil, Russia), showcasing the abundance of this resource in these regions.
• Countries positioned from 6th to 10th in the ranking (Ukraine, Canada, South Africa, Iran, Sweden) collectively produce less than half of the output of the leading producer, Australia, pointing to the enormous scale of Australia's mining industry.
• Republic of Congo and Uruguay, despite their wealth of other natural resources, are at the lower end of the production scale, contributing 46 kt and 1 kt, respectively.