Top 50 Countries by Copper Mine Production, 2025

by admin December 20, 2025 3241 30 min read

Copper mine output: why “who digs it” matters in the 2025 electrification cycle

Mine production is the amount of copper contained in ore and concentrates extracted from mines within a year. It is the upstream “physical availability” side of copper supply: before smelting, refining, fabrication, and recycling. This distinction matters because mining ≠ refining — a country can be a large miner but a small refiner, or vice versa, depending on investment in smelter capacity, power costs, environmental rules, and trade flows.

In practical terms, copper is a backbone material for electrification and infrastructure: power grids, motors, EVs, wind and solar installations, data centers, and industrial equipment all rely on high-conductivity copper components. That makes mine output a key indicator of supply concentration and potential bottlenecks — especially when demand growth is faster than the pace at which new mines can be permitted, financed, and brought online.

Data basis: copper mine production (metal content), 2023 • unit: kt (thousand metric tons)

Table 1 — Top 10 countries by copper mine production (2023)

Rank	Country	Mine production (kt; % of world)
1	Chile	5,373 kt (23.4%)
2	Congo, Democratic Republic	3,149 kt (13.7%)
3	Peru	2,755 kt (12.0%)
4	China	1,815 kt (7.9%)
5	USA	1,100 kt (4.8%)
6	Indonesia	922 kt (4.0%)
7	Russia	910 kt (4.0%)
8	Mexico	779 kt (3.4%)
9	Australia	778 kt (3.4%)
10	Zambia	699 kt (3.0%)

The Top 10 list highlights a classic feature of metals supply: a long tail of producers exists, but the top tier dominates global volumes. The largest producers combine favorable geology (ore bodies), large-scale capital projects, and export logistics. Shares are computed against a rounded world total for 2023 and should be interpreted as approximate for cross-country comparison.

Chart 1 — Top 10 copper mine producers (2023, kt)

The chart shows mine production volumes for the Top 10 producers. Values are presented in thousand metric tons (kt) of copper content and rounded for readability; minor differences across compilers can occur due to revisions and treatment of small producers.

Beyond the Top 10: Copper mine production structure (2023) and a per-capita lens

The Top 10 ranking highlights absolute output, but the full distribution matters just as much: it shows how concentrated supply is, where “mid-tier” producers sit, and how quickly global output would be exposed to disruptions in a small set of jurisdictions. The 2023 country figures below use reported mine production (metal content) harmonised for cross-country comparability.

Top 3 share: ≈49.0% of world output Top 10 share: ≈79.5% of world output World total (2023): ≈23.0 million tonnes

Copper “mine production” is not the same as smelting or refining capacity. A country can be a large miner yet export concentrates for processing elsewhere, while another can be a refining hub with limited domestic mining.

Concentration snapshot (2023)

Group	Production (Mt)	Share of world
Top 3 (Chile + DR Congo + Peru)	11.28	49.0%
Top 5 (add China + United States)	14.19	61.7%
Top 10 (add Indonesia, Russia, Mexico, Australia, Zambia)	18.28	79.5%
Rest of world	4.72	20.5%

Interpretation: when the Top 10 captures ~80% of global mine output, supply resilience depends heavily on a limited set of national mining ecosystems (ore grades, power, water, permitting, logistics, and fiscal stability).

Table 2 — Top 50 countries by copper mine production (2023)

Rank	Country	Mine production (t, 2023)
1	Chile	5,372,694
2	Democratic Republic of the Congo	3,148,567
3	Peru	2,755,139
4	China	1,815,010
5	United States	1,100,000
6	Indonesia	922,143
7	Russia	910,000
8	Mexico	778,839
9	Australia	778,369
10	Zambia	698,566
11	Kazakhstan	576,900
12	Canada	499,791
13	Mongolia	488,355
14	Poland	445,000
15	Brazil	376,338
16	Panama	330,863
17	Iran	326,000
18	Serbia	238,909
19	Uzbekistan	149,000
20	Ecuador	140,000
21	Turkey	127,000
22	Spain	114,786
23	Papua New Guinea	87,400
24	Sweden	73,780
25	Bulgaria	72,698
26	Saudi Arabia	71,810
27	Armenia	62,266
28	Philippines	61,629
29	Botswana	54,808
30	South Africa	50,023
31	Laos	50,120
32	Portugal	40,800
33	Eritrea	17,595
34	Pakistan	17,000
35	Finland	20,000
36	Vietnam	29,049
37	India	28,044
38	Morocco	32,000
39	Zimbabwe	12,908
40	Mauritania	13,014
41	Tanzania	10,000
42	Dominican Republic	9,673
43	Romania	9,300
44	North Macedonia	7,378
45	Kyrgyzstan	7,200
46	Colombia	6,000
47	Georgia	4,394
48	Albania	4,006
49	Bolivia	3,881
50	Azerbaijan	2,687

Units: tonnes of copper (metal content), 2023. The Top 50 list is generated from the 2023 country figures reported in BGS World Mineral Production 2019–2023 (copper: mine production).

Scatter — copper production per capita (selected producers, 2023)

Per-capita output can look very different from absolute volume: smaller economies hosting large mines can appear as high-intensity producers, while large-population countries often show much lower per-capita levels even with sizable total tonnage.

Chart note: y-axis shows kg of mined copper per person (2023), computed from 2023 mine output (tonnes) and 2023 population levels (rounded). Values are intended for comparative structure analysis, not as an official statistical release.

Interpreting the copper ranking: concentration, resilience, and economic meaning

Copper supply risks are often discussed as a “shortage vs. surplus” question, but the ranking suggests a more structural interpretation: supply is concentrated, project lead times are long, and disruptions are rarely diversified away quickly. When large shares come from a handful of jurisdictions, the global system becomes sensitive to a small set of operational factors: ore-grade decline at major mines, permitting delays, energy and water constraints, transport interruptions, and changes in fiscal or environmental regimes.

For producing countries, the ranking can mean very different things depending on domestic context. In high-output economies with diversified industry, copper is one component of a broader export and investment picture. In smaller or less diversified producers, copper can become a dominant source of foreign exchange and fiscal revenue, which raises the importance of stabilization tools and long-term planning. For importing and manufacturing-heavy economies, the key interpretation is downstream: reliable access to concentrates and refined copper supports the competitiveness of equipment manufacturing, grid buildout, and vehicle supply chains.

Policy takeaway

The copper mine production ranking is best read as a supply-side concentration map. A resilient copper strategy is not only about “more mining” but about expanding project pipeline depth, improving permitting and infrastructure readiness, diversifying processing routes (smelting/refining capacity where feasible), and scaling recycling to reduce pressure on primary extraction. Countries that treat copper as a strategic input for electrification benefit from monitoring concentration metrics alongside demand indicators.

Table 3 — Concentration and structure (2023, approximate)

Metric	Value	Interpretation
Share of Top 3 producers	≈ 49.0%	Roughly half of global mine output is concentrated in the three largest producers.
Share of Top 5 producers	≈ 61.7%	A small expansion to five producers still captures well over half of global output.
Share of Top 10 producers	≈ 79.5%	The Top 10 dominate global volumes; the remaining producers form a long tail.
Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI)	≈ 1,055	On a 0–10,000 scale, this indicates moderate concentration for global mine supply.
Unspecified / very small producers (combined)	≈ 0.2%	A small residual share reflects rounding and minor producers not individually listed.

Concentration metrics are computed from rounded production totals and are intended for structural comparison. The key qualitative result is stable: the copper market’s upstream side is anchored by a limited set of large producers, while the remaining output is widely dispersed across smaller producers and projects.

Primary data sources and technical notes

British Geological Survey (BGS) — World Mineral Production 2019–23 (2025) Country-level mine production tables (metal content) used for the Top 50 ranking (year 2023). https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539285/1/WMP_2019-2023_COMPLETE.pdf
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) — Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 (Copper) Global context on mine production totals, refinery production, and reserves; annual estimates published in 2025. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025.pdf
World Bank — Population, total (SP.POP.TOTL) Population totals used to compute approximate per-capita production (rounded for comparability). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL
USGS — Data release for Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 Machine-readable companion data supporting the MCS 2025 publication. https://doi.org/10.5066/P13XCP3R