Electrification
The Biggest Mining Companies in the World in 2021
Ranked: The Top 20 Mining Companies
Mining companies have emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic in excellent financial and operational shape and the forecast is even brighter as the economy recovers.
The market is expected to reach a value of nearly $1.86 trillion by 2022, with the increasing demand for minerals for power generation and renewables technology.
In the graphic above, we show the world’s top companies by market capitalization as of June 22, 2021, and the metals they mine.
The Bottom Line: From Smartphones to Food
From roads, hospitals, automobiles, houses, computers, satellites, and even fertilizer for crops, mining provides many of the materials we interact with every day. Copper, iron, rare earth metals, aluminum, and phosphate are just a handful of the mined materials that make modern life and feed the bottom line for mining companies.
The two biggest by market capitalization, BHP ($179B) and Rio Tinto ($132B), both produce a range of commodities, mainly iron ore and copper. The next on the list is also the biggest company in Brazil, Vale ($112B). The miner is the world’s largest producer of iron ore and pellets (small balls of iron ore) used to manufacture steel.
Company | Market Cap (USD) | Country | Main Mining Activity |
---|---|---|---|
BHP | $179B | 🇦🇺 Australia | iron ore, copper, coal |
Rio Tinto | $132B | 🇦🇺 Australia | iron ore, aluminum, copper |
Vale | $112B | 🇧🇷 Brazil | iron ore, nickel |
Glencore | $55B | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | copper, cobalt, zinc, nickel |
Norilsk Nickel | $54B | 🇷🇺 Russia | palladium, nickel |
Freeport-McMoRan | $52B | 🇺🇸 United States | copper |
Anglo American | $52B | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | diamonds, copper, platinum, iron ore, coal |
Fortescue Metals | $51B | 🇦🇺 Australia | iron ore |
Newmont Goldcorp | $50B | 🇺🇸 United States | gold |
Southern Copper | $47B | 🇺🇸 United States | copper |
Zijin Mining Group | $38B | 🇨🇳 China | gold, copper |
Barrick Gold | $37B | 🇨🇦 Canada | gold |
Nutrien | $34B | 🇨🇦 Canada | potash |
Anglo American Platinum | $28B | 🇿🇦 South Africa | platinum, palladium, rhodium |
Franco-Nevada | $28B | 🇨🇦 Canada | gold |
Polyus | $27B | 🇷🇺 Russia | gold |
Ganfeng Lithium | $24B | 🇨🇳 China | lithium |
Wheaton Precious Metals | $20B | 🇨🇦 Canada | gold, silver, palladium, cobalt |
Antofagasta | $19B | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | copper |
Ma’aden | $18B | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | gold |
A $57 billion gap separates the top 3 from the rest of the group. In fourth place comes Glencore ($55B) with its mixed operations of trading and mining metals, agricultural products, and oil and gas.
The automotive industry is a big consumer of metals, which explains Norilsk Nickel’s ($54B) fifth place. The company, owned by the wealthiest man in Russia, is the world’s biggest producer of palladium, used in vehicles’ catalytic converters.
Miners also serve the luxury market, with precious metals like gold, silver, and gemstones. Number six on the list, Anglo American ($52B) is one of the world’s leading diamond companies.
In terms of countries, Canada leads the ranking with 4 miners on the list. The United States and Australia come next with 3 companies each.
Charging and Changing the Future of Mining Companies
The United States, Europe, and Asia are making big investments in electrification and power generation. By 2024, almost 33% of the world’s electricity is forecast to come from renewables.
This shift from fossil fuels will require a lot of copper, cobalt, and lithium for batteries. Mining companies are in a position to capitalize as the market expands.
For example, no. 17 in the list, China’s Ganfeng Lithium, the world’s third-largest producer of lithium chemicals for batteries, saw its market capitalization grow more than 25% in 2021.
The energy transition is just beginning, and the materials used in building a more sustainable future will also build up the largest mining companies of tomorrow.
Electrification
How EV Adoption Will Impact Oil Consumption (2015-2025P)
How much oil is saved by adding electric vehicles into the mix? We look at data from 2015 to 2025P for different types of EVs.

The EV Impact on Oil Consumption
As the world moves towards the electrification of the transportation sector, demand for oil will be replaced by demand for electricity.
To highlight the EV impact on oil consumption, the above infographic shows how much oil has been and will be saved every day between 2015 and 2025 by various types of electric vehicles, according to BloombergNEF.
How Much Oil Do Electric Vehicles Save?
A standard combustion engine passenger vehicle in the U.S. uses about 10 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per year. A motorcycle uses 1, a Class 8 truck about 244, and a bus uses more than 276 BOEs per year.
When these vehicles become electrified, the oil their combustion engine counterparts would have used is no longer needed, displacing oil demand with electricity.
Since 2015, two and three-wheeled vehicles, such as mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles, have accounted for most of the oil saved from EVs on a global scale. With a wide adoption in Asia specifically, these vehicles displaced the demand for almost 675,000 barrels of oil per day in 2015. By 2021, this number had quickly grown to 1 million barrels per day.
Let’s take a look at the daily displacement of oil demand by EV segment.
Number of barrels saved per day, 2015 | Number of barrels saved per day, 2025P | |
---|---|---|
Electric Passenger Vehicles | 8,600 | 886,700 |
Electric Commercial Vehicles | 0 | 145,000 |
Electric Buses | 43,100 | 333,800 |
Electric Two & Three-Wheelers | 674,300 | 1,100,000 |
Total Oil Barrels Per Day | 726,000 | 2,465,500 |
Today, while work is being done in the commercial vehicle segment, very few large trucks on the road are electric—however, this is expected to change by 2025.
Meanwile, electric passenger vehicles have shown the biggest growth in adoption since 2015.
In 2022, the electric car market experienced exponential growth, with sales exceeding 10 million cars. The market is expected to continue its strong growth throughout 2023 and beyond, eventually coming to save a predicted 886,700 barrels of oil per day in 2025.
From Gas to Electric
While the world shifts from fossil fuels to electricity, BloombergNEF predicts that the decline in oil demand does not necessarily equate to a drop in oil prices.
In the event that investments in new supply capacity decrease more rapidly than demand, oil prices could still remain unstable and high.
The shift toward electrification, however, will likely have other implications.
While most of us associate electric vehicles with lower emissions, it’s good to consider that they are only as sustainable as the electricity used to charge them. The shift toward electrification, then, presents an incredible opportunity to meet the growing demand for electricity with clean energy sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear power.
The shift away from fossil fuels in road transport will also require expanded infrastructure. EV charging stations, expanded transmission capacity, and battery storage will likely all be key to supporting the wide-scale transition from gas to electricity.
Electrification
Graphite: An Essential Material in the Battery Supply Chain
Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, no matter the chemistry.

Graphite: An Essential Material in the Battery Supply Chain
The demand for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has skyrocketed in recent years due to the increasing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage systems.
What many people don’t realize, however, is that the key component of these batteries is not just lithium, but also graphite.
Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, regardless of the chemistry. In Li-ion batteries specifically, graphite makes up the anode, which is the negative electrode responsible for storing and releasing electrons during the charging and discharging process.
To explore just how essential graphite is in the battery supply chain, this infographic sponsored by Northern Graphite dives into how the anode of a Li-ion battery is made.
What is Graphite?
Graphite is a naturally occurring form of carbon that is used in a wide range of industrial applications, including in synthetic diamonds, EV Li-ion batteries, pencils, lubricants, and semiconductor substrates.
It is stable, high-performing, and reusable. While it comes in many different grades and forms, battery-grade graphite falls into one of two classes: natural or synthetic.
Natural graphite is produced by mining naturally occurring mineral deposits. This method produces only one to two kilograms of CO2 emissions per kilogram of graphite.
Synthetic graphite, on the other hand, is produced by the treatment of petroleum coke and coal tar, producing nearly 5 kg of CO2 per kilogram of graphite along with other harmful emissions such as sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide.
A Closer Look: How Graphite Turns into a Li-ion Battery Anode
The battery anode production process is composed of four overarching steps. These are:
- Mining
- Shaping
- Purifying
- Coating
Each of these stages results in various forms of graphite with different end-uses.
For instance, the micronized graphite that results from the shaping process can be used in plastic additives. On the other hand, only coated spherical purified graphite that went through all four of the above stages can be used in EV Li-ion batteries.
The Graphite Supply Chain
Despite its growing use in the energy transition all around the world, around 70% of the world’s graphite currently comes from China.
With scarce alternatives to be used in batteries, however, achieving supply security in North America is crucial, and it is using more environmentally friendly approaches to graphite processing.
With a lower environmental footprint and lower production costs, natural graphite serves as the anode material for a greener future.
Click here to learn more about how Northern Graphite plans to build the largest Battery Anode Material (BAM) plant in North America.
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