Where Is Aluminium Mined? Bauxite Countries and Mines

Aluminium is mined as bauxite ore, and Guinea, Australia, China and Brazil mined about 83% of the world total in 2025, according to US Geological Survey estimates: 367 million of 440 million tonnes. Guinea alone mined about 150 million tonnes. The metal itself is never dug up. Bauxite is shipped to a refinery that makes alumina, and a smelter then turns alumina into aluminium, often in another country.

That split matters if you hold a licence, advise a client or study the sector. The country with the most ore is not the country with the smelters. Below you will find the main countries, the named mines and districts, reserves, how the ore is won, and a calculator that turns your own bauxite tonnage into metal.

Is aluminium mined directly?

No. Aluminium is too reactive to occur as native metal in useful amounts, so miners extract an ore instead. The principal ore is bauxite, a mix of aluminium hydroxides and hydrous aluminium oxides. The common aluminium minerals in it are gibbsite, boehmite and diaspore, and quartz plus iron and titanium oxides are common impurities, according to the Arkansas Geological Survey. Iron oxides give many bauxites a red or brown colour, though the rock can also be pale.

Three words get mixed up, so here they are in order:

• Bauxite is the rock that comes out of the mine.
• Alumina is aluminium oxide (Al2O3), a white powder made from bauxite at a refinery.
• Aluminium (spelled aluminum in the US) is the metal, made from alumina at a smelter.

So a search for aluminium mines is really a search for bauxite mines. Rock also has a grade, meaning how much useful material each tonne holds. For bauxite, grade is usually quoted as percent alumina. One speaker at a 2026 Conakry forum put Guinean ore at about 45% alumina.

Why bauxite forms where it does

Most large bauxite deposits are lateritic. A laterite is a soil-like layer left behind when heavy rain and heat leach other elements out of the rock over a very long time, so aluminium is concentrated near the surface. That is why the biggest bauxite districts sit in the tropics or in places that were once tropical. A second group, karst bauxite, sits on limestone or dolomite; Jamaica is the example most readers will meet on this list.

Global bauxite resources are estimated at 55 billion to 75 billion tonnes: Africa 32%, Oceania 23%, South America and the Caribbean 21%, Asia 18% and elsewhere 6% (USGS, 2026). Scarcity of rock is not the limit on supply. Access, ports, power and permits are.

Where is aluminium mined in the world? Top countries

The chart uses the USGS 2025 estimates for mine production. Guinea overtook Australia as the largest miner in recent years, which still catches out many older web pages. All producers outside the top four are grouped together in the chart. US output is withheld by USGS and sits outside the world total.

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Bauxite mine production by country

Million tonnes, 2025 estimates; US output withheld

Guinea: the largest bauxite miner

USGS estimates Guinea mined 150 million tonnes in 2025, about 34% of the world total, and holds 7.4 billion tonnes of reserves. Reported exports run higher: 182.8 million tonnes of raw bauxite in 2025 was presented at a forum in Conakry in October 2026. The two figures come from different compilers and do not reconcile, so quote each with its source. The main mining belt runs through the Boké region in the northwest.

Australia: three big districts

USGS puts Australia at 97 million tonnes in 2025. Geoscience Australia says most of the economic resources sit in Queensland and Western Australia, where the Cape York and Darling Range deposits dominate. The Northern Territory adds Gove. Our Australia mineral deposits map shows these districts by state.

China: a big miner and a bigger buyer

China mined about 87 million tonnes in 2025 (USGS) but refined about 93 million tonnes of alumina, which takes far more ore than it digs. It imports the difference. In 2022 it imported 125 million tonnes of bauxite, 56% from Guinea, 27% from Australia and 15% from Indonesia (USGS Minerals Yearbook). Guangxi is one of its mining provinces; Aluminum Corporation of China opened a new mine near Pingguo City there in 2022, the same yearbook reports.

Brazil: the Amazon state of Pará

Brazil mined about 33 million tonnes in 2025 (USGS) and holds 1.7 billion tonnes of reserves. Two large mines in Pará stand out in the USGS Minerals Yearbook for 2022: Mineração Rio do Norte, with capacity of 18 million tonnes a year, and Paragominas in the northeast of the state, with 11.4 million tonnes a year. Alcoa also ships ore from Juruti.

Other producers worth knowing

• Indonesia: about 10 million tonnes in 2025 with 2.9 billion tonnes of reserves (USGS, 2026). The government announced a bauxite export ban from June 2023 to push refining at home. USGS reports that output has fallen sharply since the ban, and that a 1-million-tonne-a-year refinery at Mempawah shipped its first alumina in April 2025.
• Jamaica: about 6.2 million tonnes in 2025 and 2 billion tonnes of reserves (USGS, 2026).
• Russia and Saudi Arabia: about 5.7 million tonnes each in 2025 (USGS, 2026).
• Kazakhstan: about 4.8 million tonnes in 2025 (USGS, 2026).
• Vietnam and Turkey: about 3.8 million tonnes each in 2025. Vietnam stands out for its reserves of 3.1 billion tonnes (USGS, 2026).

Where is aluminum mined in the US?

Hardly at all for metal. USGS says a limited amount of bauxite and bauxitic clay was produced in Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia in 2025 for non-metallurgical uses, and that tonnage is withheld. Arkansas last mined bauxite for aluminium metal in 1982, its state survey records. US net import reliance for bauxite is above 75%, at an average import value of about US$32 per tonne in 2025. For the trade picture, see our notes on US bauxite and aluminum exports.

Largest bauxite mines and districts by country

The table lists named operations with a figure or status we could trace to an owner or government-survey page. It is a selection of well-documented sites, not a ranking, because no public source reports every mine on the same basis.

Guinea is also a live example of licence risk. The government transferred the GAC assets to a new state-backed company after a dispute that began in October 2024, and the operator publicly denounced the decision. Licence owners and investors should read local refining rules as closely as the geology. Listed companies appear here as facts about assets only.

▶ Licences in Africa: the routes open to foreign holders · 5:16

Bauxite reserves: where the future supply sits

Reserves are the part of a resource judged economic to mine, so they point to where production can grow. Mine output and reserves tell different stories. USGS puts world reserves at 29 billion tonnes, with Guinea at about a quarter. Vietnam, Indonesia and Jamaica hold far more than their current output suggests, while China holds only 710 million tonnes against a very large refining industry.

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Bauxite reserves by country, largest named

Billion tonnes, USGS 2026; other countries not shown

One caution on Australia: USGS lists 3.7 billion tonnes but notes that only 1.7 billion tonnes are JORC-compliant or equivalent. JORC is the Australian code for public reporting of reserves. Reserve estimates across countries are not always on the same standard, so treat small differences as noise.

How is aluminium mined? The open-pit process

Lateritic bauxite usually lies in flat layers close to the surface, so most of it is won by surface strip mining rather than tunnels. The sequence looks like this at a typical mine:

1. Explore and test. Geologists map the ground, then drill closely spaced holes to define ore thickness and grade.
2. Clear and store soil. Vegetation is removed and topsoil is kept aside for rehabilitation.
3. Remove overburden. Overburden is the waste soil and rock above the ore. In many deposits it is only a few metres thick.
4. Dig the ore. Excavators or loaders dig the layer. Harder seams can need ripping or blasting.
5. Upgrade if needed. Some ore is crushed or washed to take out clay, and some ships without this step.
6. Haul and ship. Trucks, conveyors, rail or barges take ore to a port or refinery.
7. Rehabilitate. Mined strips are reshaped, topsoil returned and native plants established.

The main footprint is land area, because thin layers mean large areas are disturbed for each tonne. Rehabilitation is central to how a project is judged. Our guide to open-pit and strip mining consequences covers the wider issues, and how bulk deposits are found and tested covers early drilling.

▶ The main environmental impacts of mining, explained · 2:31

From bauxite to aluminium: refining and smelting

Most ore then passes through two industrial steps. Together they explain why mine location and metal location differ. For a closer look at plants and methods, see our page on aluminium extraction, mines and processes.

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Bauxite mined versus alumina refined

Million tonnes, 2025 estimates, selected countries

• Bayer refining. Hot caustic soda dissolves the aluminium minerals. Residue settles out, aluminium hydroxide crystals form, and heating drives off water to leave alumina.
• Hall-Héroult smelting. Alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite and split by a strong electric current. Metal collects at the bottom of the cell and oxygen reacts with carbon anodes to form carbon dioxide.

Refining leaves bauxite residue, often called red mud. The International Aluminium Institute gives an average of 1.23 tonnes of residue per tonne of alumina, and the alkaline material must be held in stable storage. Smelting needs a lot of power, which is why smelters follow cheap electricity.

The result is a very uneven map. Guinea mines a third of the world’s bauxite yet makes only about 360,000 tonnes of alumina. China makes about 62% of the world’s alumina and, per USGS smelter data, about 61% of primary aluminium (45 million of 74 million tonnes, 2025).

How much aluminium does your bauxite make?

Chemistry sets a hard ceiling: alumina is about 52.9% aluminium by weight, from the atomic weights. Real plants lose some alumina on the way. The calculator lets you test your own ore and compare the rock’s value with the metal’s. As a price reference, the LME cash bid was US$3,134.50 per tonne on 4 November 2026 (AlCircle report), and bauxite imported to the US averaged about US$32 per tonne in 2025 (USGS).

The gap between those two prices is not profit. It pays for refining, smelting, power and shipping, which a mine owner does not earn unless it owns those plants.

What licence owners and investors should check

• Reactive versus available alumina. Reactive silica uses up caustic soda at the refinery, so a high total alumina figure can mislead. Ask for both numbers.
• Distance to port. Bauxite is a low-value bulk ore. At around US$32 per tonne, a long haul can use up most of the value.
• Export and refining rules. Indonesia’s ban and Guinea’s licence action both show that the rules can change.
• Layer thickness and overburden. Together they set the strip ratio, meaning the waste moved per tonne of ore.
• Rehabilitation cost. Budget it from day one, since large areas are affected.
• Land and community rights. Several large mines sit on traditional land, and agreements with owners shape what can happen.

Satellite imagery can help at the screening stage by showing land use, access routes, disturbance and terrain before a site visit. Farmonaut’s satellite-based mineral detection covers metals such as iron and manganese, and can screen a licence boundary from a KML file before field work. Results are exploration targets, and only drilling and assays can confirm a deposit. For scope and pricing, use the mining quote form or contact us.

▶ Remote sensing for mining in plain words · 2:01

Frequently asked questions

Where is aluminium mined?

It is mined as bauxite, mostly in Guinea, Australia, China and Brazil, which produced about 83% of the 2025 world total (USGS, 2026).

Where is aluminium mined in the world on a map?

The main belts are the Boké region of Guinea, Cape York and the Darling Range in Australia, Pará in Brazil, and Chinese provinces such as Guangxi. Smaller output comes from Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Russia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Is aluminium mined or made?

Both. The ore, bauxite, is mined. The metal is made from it in two factory steps: refining to alumina, then smelting.

Which country produces the most bauxite?

Guinea, at an estimated 150 million tonnes in 2025, followed by Australia at 97 million tonnes (USGS, 2026).

Which country produces the most aluminium metal?

China, at about 45 million of the 74 million tonnes of primary aluminium made in 2025 (USGS, 2026).

Where are the largest aluminium mines?

Alcoa describes Huntly in Western Australia as the world’s largest bauxite mine. Other large operations include Amrun in Queensland and Sangarédi and SMB in Guinea.

Is aluminium mined in the United States?

Only small tonnages of bauxite and bauxitic clay, in Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia, for non-metal uses (USGS, 2026). US smelters rely on imported material.

Is aluminium mined in Canada?

USGS lists no Canadian bauxite production. Canada smelted about 3.3 million tonnes of primary aluminium in 2025 and refined about 1.5 million tonnes of alumina, using imported raw material.

How much bauxite does it take to make aluminium?

It depends on the grade and recovery. Use the calculator on this page with your own ore figures; chemistry alone caps aluminium at about 52.9% of the alumina recovered.

How is aluminium mined?

Mostly by open-pit strip mining: clear the land, keep the topsoil, remove overburden, dig the shallow ore layer, haul it, then rehabilitate the strip.

Is aluminium recycled instead of mined?

Both supply the market. The Aluminum Association says around 75% of all aluminum ever produced is still in use, and that recycling takes about 5% of the energy of new metal. Bauxite is still needed to meet primary demand.