Canada’s World Role as a Producer of Minerals, 2008

	World	Rank of Five Leading Countries
		1	2	3	4	5
Uranium (metal content) (mine production)
		Canada	Kazakhstan	Australia	Namibia	Russia
t	43 923	9 001	8 521	8 471	4 366	3 521
% of world total		20.5	19.4	19.3	9.9	8.0
Potash (K2O equivalent) (mine production)
		Canada	Russia	Belarus	Germany	Israel
000 t	36 000	11 000	6 900	5 100	3 600	2 400
% of world total		30.6	19.2	14.2	10.0	6.7
Nickel (mine production)
		Russia	Canada	Australia	Indonesia	New Caledonia
000 t	1 515	277	260	200	180	103
% of world total		18.3	17.1	13.2	11.9	6.8
Cobalt (mine production)
		Congo, D.R.	Canada	Australia	Brazil	Zambia
t	66 788	31 000	8 644	5 500	4 300	3 841
% of world total		46.4	12.9	8.2	6.4	5.8
Titanium concentrate (Ilmenite)
		Australia	South Africa	Canada	China	Norway
000 t	5 640	1 250	1 090	900	550	380
% of world total		22.2	19.3	16.0	9.6	6.7
Platinum group metals (metal content)
		South Africa	Russia	Canada	U.S.A.	Zimbabwe
kg	479 919	291 600	127 500	21 177	16 100	11 500
% of world total		60.8	26.6	4.4	3.4	2.4
Aluminum (primary metal)
		China	Russia	Canada	U.S.A.	Australia
000 t	39 267	13 177	3 800	3 120	2 658	1 974
% of world total		33.6	9.7	7.9	6.8	5.0
Diamonds
		Russia	Botswana	Congo, D.R.	Australia	Canada
000 carats	165 200	36 925	32 595	33 402	15 670	14 803
% of world total		22.4	19.7	20.2	9.5	9.0
Chrysotile (asbestos) (mine production)
		Russia	China	Kazakhstan	Brazil	Canada
000 t	2 180	925	380	300	220	175
% of world total		42.4	17.4	13.8	10.1	8.0
Zinc (mine production)
		China	Peru	Australia	U.S.A.	Canada
000 t	11 709	3 186	1 603	1 519	778	716
% of world total		27.2	13.7	13.0	6.6	6.1
Molybdenum (Mo content) (mine production)
		U.S.A.	China	Chile	Peru	Canada
t	211 300	61 400	59 800	45 000	17 000	9 150
% of world total		29.1	28.3	21.3	8.0	4.3
Salt (mine production)
		China	U.S.A.	Germany	India	Canada (7)
000 t	260 000	60 000	46 000	19 000	15 800	12 000
% of world total		23.1	17.7	7.3	6.1	4.6
Cadmium (metal) (1)
		China	South Korea	Japan	Kazakhstan	Mexico
t	19 566	4 300	3 090	2 126	1 700	1 550
% of world total		22.0	15.8	10.9	8.7	7.9
Gypsum (mine production) (2)
		China	U.S.A.	Iran	Spain	Thailand
000 t	151 000	40 700	12 700	12 000	11 300	8 800
% of world total		27.0	8.4	7.9	7.5	5.8
Lead (mine production) (3)
		China	Australia	U.S.A.	Peru	Mexico
000 t	3 956	1 546	645	410	345	141
% of world total		39.1	16.3	10.4	8.7	3.6
Gold (mine production) (4)
		China	U.S.A.	Australia	South Africa	Russia
t	2 298	285	235	214	213	185
% of world total		12.4	10.2	9.3	9.3	8.0
Copper (mine production) (5)
		Chile	U.S.A.	Peru	China	Australia
000 t	15 404	5 330	1 310	1 268	931	886
% of world total		34.6	8.5	8.2	6.0	5.8
Silver (6)
		Peru	Mexico	China	Australia	Chile
t	21 304	3 686	3 236	2 800	1 926	1 405
% of world total		17.3	15.2	13.1	9.0	6.6

Sources: Natural Resources Canada, from World Nonferrous Statistics and the Canadian Minerals Yearbook; U.S. Geological Survey.
(1) Canada ranked 6th. (2) Canada ranked 6th. (3) Canada ranked 6th. (4) Canada ranked 8th. (5) Canada ranked 8th. (6) Canada ranked 10th. (7) Tied with Australia for fifth.

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