When it comes to commodities, individual countries often dominate global reserves. While the United States may be the world’s largest oil producer, Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves with over 300 billion barrels. Australia and Russia have the largest unmined gold deposits, and Brazil is the largest producer of soybeans.
For rare earth elements, or REEs, China dominates the market with an estimated 44 million metric tons. That accounts for approximately 40% to 49% of known global reserves. The country also leads in global production, mining just under 70% of the world’s supply and refining nearly 90% of it.
