Iron is one of the most needed metals in industry today, since steel production depends on it very much and the biggest economic forces such as China or USA are demand huge amounts of of this metal. These countries are also the ones that import the most of iron by percentage: 94% of the whole worldwide annual import goes to top 15 steel producing countries (as we have noted USA and  China among them, together with Turkey, Russia, South Korea and Germany).

Although China has one of the greatest deposits of iron in the world, that iron is not of the highest quality, meaning it has less than 55-60% of Fe in the ore. On the other hand, Australia and Brazil seem to have the best high quality iron ore in the world:

Australia, on the other hand is the leading in the amount of iron ore reserves by country (iron ore reserves, as well as any reserves, are “naturally occurring solid, liquid, or gaseous material in or on the Earth’s crust in such form and amount that economic extraction of a commodity from the concentration is currently or potentially feasible”), and among others at the top are Brazil and South Africa. Australia is also the largest producer of high grade iron ore in the world, having very rich mines in high grade iron ores. That is namely Pilbara region, where very rich in iron hematite ore is mined. Pilbara hematite ore is known as ”direct shipping ore” since it contains very high iron levels (56-64% in this case), and it only passes the crushing, screening and blending processes before being shipped.

So, now, knowing where the most quality and the hugest amounts of iron come from, you might be interested in which companies are leading in the world. To get to know which the 11 biggest iron ore producers in the world in the 2017 are, check out this article published on Insider Monkey.