Every February the U.S. Geological Survey publishes its Mineral Commodity Summaries, a country-by-country estimate of how much of each mineral the world mined the year before. The 2026 edition covers 2025. Put four of its tables side by side (lithium, cobalt, nickel and natural graphite) and one pattern stands out: three of the four are dominated by a single country, and lithium is not.
| Mineral (2025) | Top producer | Its share of world mine output |
|---|---|---|
| Cobalt | Congo (Kinshasa) | 74.2% |
| Natural graphite | China | 77.8% |
| Nickel | Indonesia | 66.7% |
| Lithium | Australia | 31.7% |
Lithium: three big producers, and a new number two
Australia mined 92,000 tons of lithium in 2025, measured as lithium content. That is the most of any country, but it is only 32% of the roughly 290,000-ton world total, which excludes the United States. China mined 62,000 tons and Chile 56,000 tons. That order is new: in the USGS's revised 2024 figures Chile (48,900 tons) was still ahead of China (41,400 tons).
Output grew quickly. The USGS puts world production outside the United States up 31%, from 222,000 tons in 2024, and estimates that batteries accounted for 88% of lithium use. Zimbabwe grew to 28,000 tons and Argentina to 23,000 tons. Mali, where two operations started in 2024, went from 770 tons to 9,400 tons.
The reserves picture is different again. Chile holds the largest reserves, 9,200,000 tons, ahead of Australia (8,400,000 tons). Bolivia, which the USGS lists as having the second-largest lithium resources at 23 million tons, has no reserve figure at all in this edition. Resources count known lithium whether or not it is economic to extract today; reserves count only what is.
Cobalt: three-quarters from one country
Congo (Kinshasa) mined 230,000 tons of cobalt, 74.2% of the world's 310,000 tons. Indonesia was a distant second with 44,000 tons, up from 35,000 tons in 2024. No other country reached 10,000 tons.
Congo's export policy changed twice during the year. In February 2025 it temporarily banned cobalt exports to address oversupply and low prices. In October it replaced the ban with quotas: 18,125 tons of contained cobalt for the rest of 2025, and up to 96,600 tons a year in 2026 and 2027. The quota for each of those years is less than half of what Congo mined in 2025. The USGS also notes that China, which mined only 2,000 tons, remained the world's leading producer and consumer of refined cobalt, mainly for the lithium-ion battery industry.
Nickel: Indonesia grew by more than any other country produces
Indonesia mined 2,600,000 tons of nickel in 2025, 66.7% of the 3.9-million-ton world total. It added 290,000 tons in a single year, more than the entire 2025 output of the Philippines, the second-largest producer at 270,000 tons. The USGS attributes the increase to new operations ramping up.
Elsewhere, output fell. According to the International Nickel Study Group, cited by the USGS, the market has been in surplus since 2022, and the average London Metal Exchange price in 2025 was an estimated 11% below 2024. Australia's output fell from 98,000 to 45,000 tons after several companies put mines on care-and-maintenance, and the Philippines fell from 354,000 to 270,000 tons after multiple mines cut production.
Graphite: China, and fast growth in Africa
China mined 1,400,000 tons of natural graphite, 77.8% of the world's 1.8 million tons. The next producer, Madagascar, mined 80,000 tons. The fastest growth came from Tanzania, which went from 27,000 to 75,000 tons, and Mozambique, up from 39,000 to 60,000 tons as a new mine opened in Niassa and the Balama mine restarted.
Graphite is also the subject of a trade dispute. In 2025 the U.S. Department of Commerce set preliminary anti-dumping duties of 93.5% on graphite anode material from China. The United States itself mined no natural graphite in 2025; the USGS records that flake graphite was last produced there in 1979.
What these numbers do not show
Mining is not refining. The four production charts count output by the country where the mine is. Where the metal is processed can look very different, as China's position in refined cobalt shows.
They are estimates. The USGS revises the previous year's figures in every edition; this one revised 2024 numbers for, among others, Argentina and Mali (lithium), Australia, Canada and Indonesia (cobalt), Canada (nickel) and eleven graphite producers. The 2025 values will be revised too.
Some production is hidden or excluded. U.S. lithium output is withheld to protect company data, so the United States is missing from the lithium chart. The graphite figures cover natural graphite only; synthetic graphite is not included. Smaller producers are grouped as "other countries" in the cobalt and nickel tables.
Each chart page lists its own notes and limits, and every number above can be traced to the USGS summaries linked below.
Primary sources
- U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Graphite (natural) (February 2026)