For many years now, the USA has enjoyed the status of the world’s leading economic power. With a gross domestic product of $20.9 trillion, the U.S. ranked far ahead of China and Japan as the country with the largest GDP in 2020. The mining industry is one of the most important industries in the United States.
The country is rich in raw materials and the already developed raw material areas are truly huge in their extent and also in their yield as well as in the versatility of the, on the US national territory existing raw materials.
The country is rich in raw materials
The territory of the USA is rich in large oil and coal deposits. But the USA is also one of the world’s most important producers of lead and molybdenum.
In 2020, about 290,000 tons of lead were mined in the United States. This makes the United States the third largest lead producing country in the world. In fact, the USA is the world’s second largest producer of molybdenum.
The extremely hard and corrosion-resistant metal is irreplaceable as a steel finisher and as a dry lubricant. It also serves as a substitute for silicon in the manufacture of semiconductors. Molybdenum is therefore one of the most promising raw materials worldwide.
In addition, the USA has large deposits of gold, palladium, copper, zinc and platinum and is therefore one of the world’s most important producers of these commodities.
In the past decades, the coal industry took a dominant role. The USA is still one of the most important coal-producing countries, but coal mining has stagnated in recent years and is even declining slightly.
Overall, the U.S. mining industry has shown a large increase in industrial minerals over the past few years, while production of other metals and coal has declined slightly.
Major U.S. mining companies and major mines in the U.S.
The largest domestic company in the U.S. coal industry is Peabody Energy. The Group owns a total of 13 operating mines in the Midwestern US,Western US and Powder River Basin regions. In addition, Peabody Energy has other mines in Australia. The most profitable and also largest Group-owned mine is the North Antelope Rochelle coal mine in the US state of Wyoming.
The largest U.S. gold producers are Barrick Gold, Newmont Mining and Kinross Gold. In addition to other mines in other countries, all three groups own profitable and important gold mines in the USA. These include, for example, the Cortez and Goldstrike mines, both owned by Barrick Gold, or Newmont Mining’s Carlin and Twin Creeks mines.
In copper production, Freeport McMoRan is considered the market leader in the USA. The company owns 7 open-pit copper mines in the United States and faces stiff competition for copper mining in its own country from British-Australian Rio Tinto, which also owns mines in the US.
