@timofeyTwenty entries, and the top one is basically playing a different sport. World Mining Data 2025 lays out the biggest nickel-producing countries and jurisdictions from 2023, and Indonesia's line reads 2,028,800 tonnes. That single figure is more than half of everything the dataset logged worldwide for the year. Mining for this stuff is concentrated in a way that's almost hard to picture. Where nickel actually goes: it's an industrial metal sitting inside high-performance alloys, stainless steel, batteries, energy infrastructure, and a long tail of manufacturing uses. Not glamorous, just everywhere. The rest of the 2023 board, in tonnes: Philippines 389,000 New Caledonia 233,375 Russia 211,300 Australia 149,090 Canada 127,237 China 110,400 Brazil 72,398 Colombia 43,030 Finland 41,941 Cuba 37,500 Côte d'Ivoire 37,210 Madagascar 36,085 Papua New Guinea 33,604 South Africa 29,750 Guatemala 20,300 Türkiye 18,390 Dominican Republic 17,875 Zimbabwe 17,784 United States 16,400 Stack all twenty and they cover about 99.52% of the 2023 nickel production in the dataset. The numbers track nickel content from mine production, not the gross weight of the ore pulled out of the ground. One jurisdictional quirk: World Mining Data gives New Caledonia its own line as a producing jurisdiction, even though it's a French overseas territory. Source: World Mining Data 2025, mineral production data for 2023.

@timofeyTwenty entries, and the top one is basically playing a different sport. World Mining Data 2025 lays out the biggest nickel-producing countries and jurisdictions from 2023, and Indonesia's line reads 2,028,800 tonnes. That single figure is more than half of everything the dataset logged worldwide for the year. Mining for this stuff is concentrated in a way that's almost hard to picture. Where nickel actually goes: it's an industrial metal sitting inside high-performance alloys, stainless steel, batteries, energy infrastructure, and a long tail of manufacturing uses. Not glamorous, just everywhere. The rest of the 2023 board, in tonnes: Philippines 389,000 New Caledonia 233,375 Russia 211,300 Australia 149,090 Canada 127,237 China 110,400 Brazil 72,398 Colombia 43,030 Finland 41,941 Cuba 37,500 Côte d'Ivoire 37,210 Madagascar 36,085 Papua New Guinea 33,604 South Africa 29,750 Guatemala 20,300 Türkiye 18,390 Dominican Republic 17,875 Zimbabwe 17,784 United States 16,400 Stack all twenty and they cover about 99.52% of the 2023 nickel production in the dataset. The numbers track nickel content from mine production, not the gross weight of the ore pulled out of the ground. One jurisdictional quirk: World Mining Data gives New Caledonia its own line as a producing jurisdiction, even though it's a French overseas territory. Source: World Mining Data 2025, mineral production data for 2023.