Start with something you did not know
Then go anywhere →
100%
of the world's gallium comes out of China
Mine production, 2025 · USGS
88%
of the world's bismuth comes out of China
Mine production, 2025 · USGS
87%
of the world's silicon comes out of China
Mine production, 2025 · USGS
14
materials the United States imports every single gram of
Net import reliance, 2025 · USGS
27
materials nobody mines on purpose — they arrive as somebody else's by-product
Editorial classification
1,000,000 litres
becomes 8 kg of contained lithium
Worked example · follow it step by step
1,000 tonnes
becomes 1.6 tonnes of finished sintered magnet
Worked example · follow it step by step
1,000 tonnes
becomes 250 tonnes of primary aluminium
Worked example · follow it step by step
200 tonnes
becomes 25 tonnes of enriched fuel
Worked example · follow it step by step
0.2–0.3 kg
of neodymium in one NdFeB Permanent Magnet, per kg of finished magnet
Indicative range · see the basis
100–200 kg
of neodymium in one Direct-Drive Offshore Wind Turbine, per MW of capacity
Indicative range · see the basis
6–9 kg
of lithium in one NMC Lithium-Ion Battery, per 75 kWh pack
Indicative range · see the basis
Everything is one chain
All supply chains →The same nine stages sit behind almost every physical product. Here they are for copper — click any stage to see what lives there.
-
01Raw material
What it is and where it sits in the ground
Copper in the ground — here as green malachite
-
02Deposit
The mineral that actually carries it
Chalcopyrite, the most important copper ore
-
03Mine
Who digs it up, and how
Escondida, Chile — the world's largest copper mine by output
-
04Processing
Crushing, floating, smelting
Froth flotation lifts copper minerals out of ground rock
-
05Refining
Getting to a usable purity
Copper anodes on their way to the refinery
-
06Component
The part it becomes
Copper windings inside an electric motor
-
07Product
The thing you can buy
An electric car
-
08End market
Who needs it and why
Power grids
-
09Company
Who owns the assets
BHP's headquarters in Melbourne — BHP operates Escondida
One tonne of copper, from a Chilean pit to a wire — 0.5% ore, a smelter on another continent, and the gold and tellurium that fall out on the way. Follow it →
Follow one consignment, border by border
All journeys →Venezuelan extra-heavy crude and Saudi Arab Light are both "oil", and only one of them can be refined almost anywhere. Pick a material, pick where it came out of the ground, and watch who holds it at every border.
Venezuelan extra-heavy crude to diesel, asphalt and aluminium anodes
Oil so thick it will not flow down a pipe, and cannot be refined by most refineries on Earth.
Saudi Arab Light to petrol, almost anywhere
The same commodity, a fraction of the effort — because of what the molecule is.
Alberta oil sands: mined like ore, refined like oil
The only oil in the world that is dug up with a shovel and graded like an orebody.
Chilean brine to a battery in a car
The ore is water. The first year and a half of processing is done by the sun, for free.
Australian spodumene to a battery, the fast way
Eight weeks instead of eighteen months, at the cost of a great deal more energy.
New Caledonian laterite to stainless steel
An island that smelts its own ore, and pays for it with the most expensive electricity in the industry.
Indonesian laterite to a battery cathode
A country that banned raw ore exports and built the processing industry instead.
Chilean sulfide concentrate to Chinese cathode to a wire
Chile mines the most copper in the world. China refines the most. Those are not the same sentence.
Or take the same chains without the borders
Materials the world is short of
The full critical minerals list →Criticality flag as designated in the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026. Leading-producer shares are 2025 estimates from the same source.
Cobalt
A hard, bluish metal that keeps a battery's cathode stable so it does not overheat, and that holds its strength when red hot.
Scandium
A light metal that makes aluminium dramatically stronger and weldable — and which is produced in tonnes per year worldwide, not…
Beryllium
A very light, very stiff metal that is transparent to X-rays and dangerous to breathe as dust.
Boron
An element that makes glass resist thermal shock, fibreglass strong, and — with iron and neodymium — the strongest magnets…
Copper
The reddish metal that carries electricity better than anything except silver, and which humans have been smelting for about…
Cerium
The most abundant rare earth — more common in the crust than copper — mostly used as a polishing powder and in catalytic…
Fluorspar
Calcium fluoride, the mineral that every fluorine atom in industry ultimately comes from — including the fluorine in battery…
Tin
A soft metal with a low melting point, which is why nearly every electrical joint in every device is held together with it.
Three ways in
Play with the numbers
A million electric cars would take 4.4% of a year of world graphite production.
Pick any technology and any quantity, and see the material bill against world supply.
Open the calculator →
See the whole board
77 elements are traded commodities. The rest of the periodic table is not.
Which elements the economy actually uses — and, just as usefully, which it does not.
Open the periodic table →
Just ask
“Which countries control cobalt production?”
Answered only from this site, with the reference period and the pages it came from. It will not guess.
Ask the Data →
Latest reporting
All news →Headlines and summaries from named publishers, each linking back to the original. We do not republish articles.
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Photographs on this page · 50
- TWIN-BUTTES MINE. AERIAL OF OPEN PIT MINE, 1,000 FEET DEEP. (FROM THE D… · Cornelius M. Keyes · Public domain
- Big truck looks small in an open pit mine.jpg · Rob and Stephanie Levy from Townsville, Australia · CC BY 2.0
- Quartz, malachite.jpg · Géry PARENT · Public domain
- Chalcopyrite, Quartz, Siderite. Friedrich Wilhelm mine, Herdorf, Westph… · Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Escondida Copper Mine, Atacama Desert, Chile 2009-12-09 lrg.jpg · The image was taken by the the Expedition 22 crew. · Public domain
- Prominenthill-flotation.jpg · Geomartin · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Train with anodes in Pori (1).jpg · Joe K. · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Stator Winding of a BLDC Motor.jpg · Medvedev · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Electric car charging at a station during the day with the charging cab… · Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0
- Transmission tower of a high-voltage overhead powerlines File 022.jpg · Novoklimov · CC BY 4.0
- 171 Collins Street Melbourne.jpg · HappyWaldo · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Orinoco Oil Belt.png · Christopher J. Schenk · Public domain
- Saudi Aramco oil pipe lines,Jubail - panoramio.jpg · Suresh Babunair · CC BY 3.0
- Members of Medical Survey Gorup watch shovel in operation loading overb… · Russell Lee · Public domain
- Lithium Ponds of Chile's Salar de Atacama (SVS15006).jpg · NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - SSAI/R… · Public domain
- Brockman 4 open pit after blast, September 2018.jpg · Calistemon · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Camp minier goro nouvelle caledonie.jpg · Barsamuphe · CC BY 3.0
- A part of nickel industry in Kolaka, South East Sulawesi Province.jpg · Famhar1968 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Chuquicamata copper mine - Chuquicamata-Kupfermine.jpg · Alexander Gerst · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Plastic bottle containing gallium metal.JPG · Pixelmaniac pictures ( Leave a reply ) · CC0
- Bismuth crystal Créer le cristal n01.jpg · Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart · CC BY 4.0
- Wafer 20110212.jpg · Sangitiana Fararano · CC BY-SA 2.0
- CSIRO ScienceImage 8217 A bulk carrier entering Port Hunter Newcastle N… · Nick Pitsas, CSIRO · CC BY 3.0
- Petrolkoks IMG 6166.jpg · romanm ( talk ) · CC BY-SA 2.5 si
- Electric car charging point, Wetherby service station (30th November 20… · Mtaylor848 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wheel hub motor of an electric kick scooter, sidepanel removed (2022).jpg · Andrez1 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Detailed view of a cross-section of a modern window frame shows multipl… · Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0
- Clementine reactor core.jpg · E. T. Jurney · Public domain
- 4 Neodymium magnets from hard disks-6175.jpg · Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Nacelle of Wind Turbine 01.jpg · Σ64 · CC BY 4.0
- Lithium Ion Battery Cell - Cylindrical Cell, Prismatic Cell, Pouch Cell.png · CRBAman · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Cobaltite (GeoDIL number - 1151).jpg · Darla Sondrol · CC0
- Scandium (Element - 21).jpg · James St. John · CC BY 2.0
- Crystal surface of colorless Beryl, multicolor filter, size 5,8 x 3,9 mm.jpg · Sepelinmurskaaja · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Borax crystals.jpg · Aram Dulyan ( User:Aramgutang ) · Public domain
- Chalcopyrite botroïdale.jpg · Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Cerium (Element - 58) 2.jpg · James St. John · CC BY 2.0
- Fluorite crystals.jpg · Marek Novotňák · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Cassiterite (GeoDIL number - 37).jpg · Shannon Heinle · CC0
- Minerals in the Indian Museum, Kolkata 05.jpg · Kritzolina · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Naturalis Biodiversity Center - Museum - Exhibition Nature theatre 06 -… · Photographer: Henk Caspers/Naturalis · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Drill core repository - Geological and Mining Institute of Spain 03.JPG · PePeEfe · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Lithium Iron Phosphate LiFePO4 Cells 700Ah in Parallel and Series and B… · Yo-Co-Man · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Tesvolt battery energy storage system Rheineck.jpg · Kecko from Eastern Switzerland · CC BY 2.0
- Krolewska Huta Prezydent mine headframe.jpg · Aleksander Siermontowski (1889-1942) · Public domain
- Recycled plastic core trays solar energy - PCT Plastic Core Trays.jpg · Enkaseo · CC0
- Zlatarski's famous geological map of Bulgaria.jpg · Motekov · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Duga-1 radar data center inside empty server racks 2018.jpg · Joël van der Loo · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Map of the territory of Montana with portions of the adjoining territor… · De Lacy, W. W. (Walter Washington), 1819-1892 · Public domain
- Cooling towers of a nuclear power plant.jpg · Vsatinet · CC BY-SA 4.0
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