Other Nonmetallic Mineral Mining & Quarrying (U.S.)

An investor's primer — NAICS 2022 code 212390

Written for a general investing audience — both public-market investors (listed producers and diversified miners, sector funds) and private investors (private/PE-owned operators, and mineral- and royalty-rights owners). Federal business statistics are from the U.S. Census Bureau; physical production, prices, and reserves are from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Where the two differ, both are shown and labeled. Forward-looking statements are written as judgments, not facts.

---

1. Overview

NAICS 2022 code 212390 — Other Nonmetallic Mineral Mining and Quarrying — is the U.S. government's catch-all bucket for mining the chemical and fertilizer minerals that are neither coal, metal ore, stone, sand, gravel, nor clay [1]. In plain terms, it is where you find the mines that dig up phosphate rock, potash, soda ash (trona), rock and brine salt, borates, and brine lithium — the raw inputs behind fertilizer, glass, industrial chemicals, road de-icing, and batteries.

It is a small, capital-heavy industry: about 236 establishments and 10,238 workers producing roughly $5.77 billion of shipments a year [2][3]. But those numbers understate its importance — these minerals feed multi-billion-dollar downstream fertilizer, chemical, and battery businesses, and several sit on the U.S. "critical minerals" list.

Why an investor cares. This is a commodity extraction business, not a utility or a landlord. Owners are price-takers: no U.S. producer sets the world price of phosphate, potash, lithium, or soda ash, so margins are the thin, swinging residual between a globally-set price and a largely fixed cost base. Returns are, at bottom, a leveraged bet on commodity prices — dampened only by owning the lowest-cost, longest-life reserves (or the royalties on them).

Public vs. private ways in. Clean public "pure plays" are few. Public-market investors reach the space through a short list of listed producers — Mosaic, Nutrien, Compass Minerals, Intrepid Potash, Albemarle, Rio Tinto — plus diversified materials and battery-metals exchange-traded funds (ETFs, baskets of stocks that trade like a single share). Two of the largest commodities in the code — salt and soda ash — are dominated by private and foreign owners (Cargill, Morton, WE Soda, Sisecam), so private investors, PE (private-equity) funds, and mineral/royalty-rights owners hold much of the industry that public markets cannot touch.

---

2. What it is, and what it excludes

Scope. The Census Bureau defines 212390 as establishments that develop a mine site, mine or quarry nonmetallic minerals other than coal, stone, sand, gravel, clay, and ceramic/refractory minerals, and beneficiate (physically prepare — crush, wash, screen, concentrate) those minerals at or near the mine [1]. Official examples: phosphate rock, natural borates, potash, barite, peat, rock salt, and minerals recovered from dry-lake brines [1]. The economically important commodities inside are:

The critical line: extraction vs. processing vs. support. The code covers only the mine-and-beneficiation slice. The far larger downstream steps sit in other NAICS codes: a phosphate miner's fertilizer plant (phosphoric acid, DAP/MAP — di- and mono-ammonium phosphate) is NAICS 325312; lithium chemical conversion is 325180; contract drilling and mine-support work is 213115 [1]. This is why company results and the official "212390" figure never match: the biggest dollars at Mosaic or Nutrien are in the manufacturing links, not the mining link.

What it explicitly excludes: coal mining (2121), metal-ore mining (2122, including most hard-rock lithium), stone/sand/gravel/clay mining (2123 sub-codes), and all downstream chemical manufacturing (325) [1].

Sulfur caveat. Sulfur is named in the code's definition, but traditional sulfur mining is effectively extinct in the U.S. Nearly all U.S. sulfur is now recovered as a byproduct at oil refineries and gas plants — statistically it belongs to those facilities, not to 212390 [11]. For investors here, sulfur matters mainly as a volatile input cost for phosphate producers.

A note on energy data. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the usual source for physical volumes, covers oil, gas, and coal — all of which are outside 212390. So USGS, not EIA, is the right physical-data source for this industry.

---

3. How big it is

The business (U.S. Census). Two federal programs measure it, on different years and definitions:

That works out to only ~43 workers per establishment but an average wage above $100,000 — the signature of a tiny-headcount, high-capital, continuous-process industry. Note two honesty flags: the Census imputed a large share of the 2022 revenue and payroll totals (roughly 40–50% of revenue), so treat them as the best official estimate rather than an audited sum [2]; and the Opus source report's "$8–10 billion" revenue figure was an estimate that the authoritative Economic Census total ($5.77B) supersedes.

The physical minerals (USGS, 2024–2025 data). USGS values measure the whole commodity chain — partly in downstream codes and in more recent years — so they run larger than, and cannot simply be added to, the Census business figure. Total U.S. nonfuel mineral production was ~$106 billion; salt, soda ash, and phosphate rock were each roughly billion-dollar commodities [12]. By commodity:

Salt is the largest by tonnage and jobs (~4,000 workers); potash is the most import-dependent (Canada supplies ~79% of imports); soda ash sits on the world's largest trona deposit in Wyoming's Green River Basin and exports more than half its output; lithium is the smallest workforce (~70) but the highest-optionality commodity [6][7][8][9].

---

4. The investable universe

Public exposure runs through a short list of producers, all highly levered to commodity prices, and none is a clean proxy for 212390 — each blends downstream processing and non-U.S. mines. Market caps below are approximate for mid-2026 and swing hard with the cycle.

*Approximate, mid-2026; cyclical — these move with commodity prices and are not from the source filings.

Major private, PE-owned, and foreign owners hold much of the code — especially salt and soda ash:

• Salt: Cargill (private), Morton Salt (owned by PE firm Stone Canyon Industries, bought from Germany's K+S for $3.2B in 2021; the U.S. Department of Justice forced a US Salt divestiture to clear it), and American Rock Salt (largest single U.S. rock-salt mine) [25].
• Soda ash: the Wyoming trona patch is now largely foreign-owned — WE Soda (Turkey's Ciner group) bought Genesis Alkali for ~$1.42B in 2025 to become the world's largest soda-ash producer; Sisecam (Turkey), and formerly Tata (India) and Solvay (Belgium), also mine Green River trona [24].
• Phosphate: besides Mosaic and Nutrien, J.R. Simplot (private) mines in Idaho/Utah [30].

Royalty and mineral-rights owners. Because so much output comes from federal leasable ground, the U.S. Treasury is effectively a royalty owner (see §7). A thin third-party layer is emerging — e.g., Sweetwater Royalties controls ~4.5 million mineral acres in the Green River Basin, and Intrepid earns Permian produced-water royalties [26][16]. Listed royalty/streaming vehicles for these industrial minerals remain far rarer than in precious metals.

Bottom line for the table: a general investor cannot buy clean exposure to the two biggest commodities (salt, soda ash) through equities alone — those live mostly in private and foreign hands.

---

5. How the money works

These are price-takers in a commodity business. Revenue is payable volume × realized price; cash flow is that minus mining, processing, freight, royalties, and tax. The levers:

1. Commodity price dominates. Revenue tracks price, not volume. Mosaic's net sales nearly halved from $19.1B (2022) to ~$11B (2024) with volumes roughly flat — the move was almost entirely price [13]. Lithium carbonate fell from a ~$63,700–71,100/tonne peak (2022) to ~$9,000–14,000/t (2024–25) [9]. Because fixed costs are high, price swings pass disproportionately into cash flow: Nutrien has estimated a $25/tonne change in its potash price moves annual EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization) by ~$280 million [14].

2. Reserves, resources, and reserve life. Value rests on tonnes in the ground. A resource is geology with prospects; a reserve is the economically mineable part at today's prices and costs — so a price drop can shrink reserves even though the rock is still there. The U.S. is reserve-rich in soda ash and salt, adequate in phosphate (but dwarfed by Morocco), and reserve-poor/import-dependent in potash [5][6][7][8].

3. The cost curve and break-even. Different sub-commodities use different cost language:

• Salt (and, regionally, soda ash) are freight-limited, local-pricing businesses — like aggregates. Rock salt is worth ~$54/t at the mine but far more delivered, so a well-placed mine has regional pricing power even though salt is abundant [7]. (Salt values range enormously by grade: ~$11/t for brine to ~$260/t for vacuum-pan salt [7].)
• Phosphate and potash use metal-style cash-cost-per-tonne thinking, where ore grade (P₂O₅ or K₂O %) and strip ratio set the cost floor — analogous to the AISC (all-in sustaining cost) metric used in metals mining.
• Lithium brine economics hinge on brine chemistry, evaporation/DLE (direct lithium extraction) recovery, water rights, and battery-grade product qualification — not just a headline price [9].

Low-cost natural producers (Wyoming trona, Florida phosphate) sit at the left of the global cost curve and stay cash-positive through downturns; high-cost swing producers shut when prices fall — which is exactly what happened to U.S. lithium side-streams in 2024–25 [9].

4. Capital intensity and operating leverage. Mines, mills, and evaporation ponds are enormous fixed-cost assets. With ~$1B of payroll over just ~10,000 workers producing billions in output, incremental revenue drops almost straight to operating income in up-cycles — and fixed costs crush margins in down-cycles.

5. Depletion. Reserves deplete, and the tax code recognizes it with a percentage-depletion allowance — generally ~14% for phosphate, potash, natural soda ash, and boron; ~10% for salt; ~22% for lithium and sulfur — a recurring shelter that improves after-tax cash economics [5]–[11].

6. Royalties and mineral rights. On federal land the operator pays the U.S. a production royalty; on private land (much of Florida phosphate) the mineral owner collects it. For investors, owning the mineral or royalty interest is a lower-risk, no-capex way to ride commodity prices — you keep price upside while avoiding operating and cost-inflation risk. But royalty underwriting turns entirely on the defined royalty base (gross vs. net, allowable deductions, minimums, lease term, operator solvency).

Bottom line: owners make money as low-cost, long-life, high-operating-leverage producers whose margins expand and contract with a price they cannot control. The only things management truly controls are cost position and reserve life.

---

6. What drives demand

• Agriculture (phosphate, potash, sulfur, SOP) — the master cycle. Long-run demand follows population and crop-nutrient replacement (there is no substitute for phosphorus or potassium as plant nutrients); near-run demand is far more volatile, swinging with crop prices, farm income, and dealer inventory de-stocking. USGS projects world fertilizer P₂O₅ use rising to ~51–52 Mt and potash to ~45 Mt K₂O by the late 2020s [5][6].
• De-icing (salt) — ~37–41% of salt goes to highway de-icing, driven by the number and location of winter icing events, not total snowfall. A mild winter directly dents salt-miner revenue [7].
• Glass, chemicals, construction (soda ash, salt, boron) — soda ash → flat and container glass; salt brine → chlor-alkali (chlorine, caustic soda, PVC); boron → specialty glass, ceramics, detergents. These track GDP, construction, and auto production [8][10].
• Electrification (lithium, phosphate, boron) — batteries are ~88% of lithium use, and lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries open a new phosphate demand channel [5][9]. This is the highest-growth, highest-volatility demand vector; it is also where inventory cycles and cell-manufacturing overcapacity can decouple battery demand from mined-lithium prices.

---

7. Regulation

The defining legal split: leasable vs. locatable. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 made phosphate, potassium, sodium (salt/soda ash/trona), and sulfur leasable minerals: on federal land the operator gets a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lease and pays rent plus a production royalty [21]. By contrast, hard-rock minerals including most lithium remain "locatable" under the General Mining Law of 1872 — claimed, not leased, and historically royalty-free to the government (Albemarle's Silver Peak runs on mining claims) [28]. This split decides who captures the resource rent — the U.S. Treasury on leasable ground, the claimant on locatable ground (a recurring reform target in Congress).

• Federal royalties. Minimums are generally ~5% for phosphate and sulfur and 2% for sodium (soda ash) and potassium [22]. The soda-ash royalty was cut to 2% (from 5–8%) and repeatedly extended to keep U.S. trona globally competitive — effectively a margin subsidy [22]. BLM approved several large new Wyoming trona mines (Dry Creek, the ~$5–6B Pacific Soda project) in 2024–25.
• State severance taxes add another layer on production (New Mexico potash, Florida phosphate, Wyoming minerals).
• Mine safety (MSHA). All operations are federally inspected Metal/Nonmetal mines under the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Nonmetal mining is comparatively safe versus underground coal but still heavy-industrial; BLS reported a 2024 total-recordable injury rate of ~1.8 per 100 workers [23].
• Environmental permitting is the binding constraint, especially for phosphate. Projects can require NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) review, Clean Water Act §404 wetlands permits, air permits, and reclamation bonding [27]. Phosphogypsum — the mildly radioactive byproduct of phosphoric-acid production — is stacked in Florida at >1 billion tons; the 2021 Piney Point breach dumped ~215 million gallons of contaminated water into Tampa Bay. These are open-ended, long-tailed cleanup and litigation exposures [27].
• ESG. Natural soda ash and brine lithium carry lower CO₂ footprints than synthetic soda ash and hard-rock lithium — a competitive edge for U.S. producers — while phosphate's phosphogypsum and water issues are a persistent liability [8][27].

---

8. Competitive dynamics & consolidation

At the aggregate NAICS level the industry looks unconcentrated — the top four firms hold ~44.9% of revenue, the top eight ~65.9%, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard concentration gauge) is just 674, well below the ~1,500 "concentrated" threshold [2]. But that average is misleading: it blends separate commodity markets that are each tight oligopolies — five phosphate firms, a handful of potash producers, five soda-ash firms, three boron firms [5]–[10].

• Global oligopoly overlay. Potash (Nutrien/Canpotex, Mosaic, Belarus, Russia), phosphate (Morocco's OCP as swing giant), and soda ash are globally concentrated — yet U.S. producers stay price-takers because overseas capacity resets the marginal price.
• Consolidation is the dominant trend, increasingly into foreign and PE hands: soda ash re-consolidated under WE Soda/Ciner and Sisecam; salt into Stone Canyon/Morton, Cargill, Compass, and American Rock Salt [24][25].
• High barriers to entry — world-class reserves are scarce and location-fixed, permitting is slow, and new mines cost billions — protect incumbents' low-cost positions. In salt and regional soda ash, freight itself is a moat.

---

9. Risks

1. Commodity-price cyclicality — the central risk. Every producer's revenue and margin swing violently with globally-set prices. Mosaic's ~40% revenue drop (2022→2024) and lithium's ~80%+ price collapse are recent, vivid illustrations. Earnings, dividends, and buybacks are inherently boom-bust; peak distributions are not annuities — Nutrien returned ~$5.6B to shareholders in 2022 versus far less in the down-cycle [13][9][14].
2. Cost inflation / margin squeeze. Energy, freight, sulfur, and ammonia can move opposite to the selling price. Mosaic curtailed phosphate output in 2025–26 as record sulfur costs absorbed the spread [5][11].
3. Permitting & regulatory delay. Florida wetlands permits, Wyoming trona reviews, and phosphogypsum rules can defer capacity for years [27].
4. Environmental / remediation liability. Phosphogypsum stacks and brine/reclamation obligations can outlast productive mine life [27].
5. Depletion & import dependence. U.S. potash is ~92% import-reliant, and Florida phosphate faces declining grade and reserves — supply-security and geopolitical risk (Belarus/Russia sanctions already reshaped potash trade) [5][6].
6. Weather. Mild winters (salt) and hurricanes (Florida phosphate) hit volumes directly [5][7].
7. Energy-transition risk — but note the asymmetry. Unlike coal, most of this code is not a stranded-asset loser: fertilizer minerals stay agriculturally essential and lithium/boron benefit from electrification. The one link tied to fossil-fuel throughput is byproduct sulfur [11]. Lithium's risk is the opposite — oversupply and technology (LFP vs. NMC chemistry), not obsolescence.

---

10. How to invest & outlook

Public routes.

• Producer equities — the diversified fertilizer names (NTR, MOS), the salt/SOP name (CMP), the near-pure U.S. potash small-cap (IPI), lithium/boron via diversified majors (ALB, RIO), and development-stage lithium (LAC, IONR) for project optionality. All are cyclical; expect dividends and buybacks to expand at the top of the cycle and retrench after prices fall — so weigh balance-sheet resilience and mid-cycle free cash flow, not peak earnings.
• Royalty/minority interests — thinner than in precious metals. NRP offers soda-ash exposure via a 49% Sisecam Wyoming stake, but its distributions were suspended in the recent soda-ash glut — a reminder that a royalty-like security still carries commodity, capital-call, and counterparty risk [19].
• ETFs — there is no pure "212390" fund. Investors approximate via agribusiness/fertilizer funds (e.g., MOO, VEGI, holding NTR/MOS), lithium/battery baskets (e.g., LIT, holding ALB), or broad materials/mining funds (XLB, XME) — diversified but diluted [29].

Private routes.

• Direct or PE ownership of operating mines, non-core divisions, or distressed assets — much of salt and soda ash is only reachable this way. Size leverage to trough cash flow, not a base-case price deck.
• Development projects — large upside, but stacked geological, permitting, financing, construction, and ramp risk; use staged, milestone-tied funding.
• Mineral & royalty interests — a price-linked, no-capex income stream; diversify across operators, basins, and commodities, and diligence the royalty base, title, and water rights carefully.

Near-term outlook (judgments, not facts). The code bifurcates into a stable, low-growth industrial base (salt, soda ash, sulfur) and a higher-growth, higher-volatility frontier (phosphate/LFP, potash, lithium, boron). Expect fertilizer-mineral prices to firm off 2024 lows on durable food demand, with periodic geopolitical spikes; soda ash to stay a U.S. cost/ESG winner but face oversupply from new Wyoming and Chinese capacity; salt to remain steady and weather-swung; and lithium to offer the highest upside and the highest dispersion once oversupply clears. Ownership will keep consolidating into foreign and PE hands. Across every route, the durable edge is the same: own the best reserves at the bottom of the cost curve — or the royalties on them — because in a price-taker business, cost position and reserve life are the only things anyone actually controls.

---

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS Definition: 212390 — Other Nonmetallic Mineral Mining and Quarrying," 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=212390&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — summary statistics and concentration measures for NAICS 212390 (156 firms; $5.770B receipts; CR4 44.9%, CR8 65.9%, CR20 85.1%, CR50 96%; HHI 674.4), released 2024. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNBASIC2022.EC2200BASIC
3. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (NAICS 2022 basis: 236 establishments; 10,238 employees; $1,049.1M annual payroll), 2025. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
4. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards (212390 = 600 employees, effective 2023). https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries — Phosphate Rock (2025–2026 editions, data years 2024–2025). https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-phosphate.pdf
6. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries — Potash. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-potash.pdf
7. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries — Salt. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-salt.pdf
8. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries — Soda Ash. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-soda-ash.pdf
9. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries — Lithium. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-lithium.pdf
10. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries — Boron. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-boron.pdf
11. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries — Sulfur. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-sulfur.pdf
12. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries (national nonfuel total ~$106B), 2025. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025.pdf
13. The Mosaic Company, Form 10-K (FY2024/FY2025; total net sales $19.13B 2022 → $11.12B 2024; phosphate/potash segments). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001285785&type=10-K
14. Nutrien Ltd., Annual Report / results releases (total sales ~$26B 2024; potash EBITDA sensitivity ~$280M per $25/t; ~$5.6B returned to shareholders 2022). https://www.nutrien.com/investors
15. Compass Minerals International, Form 10-K (revenue ~$1.1B; Salt ~83% / Plant Nutrition ~17%; Cote Blanche and Ogden operations). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001227654&type=10-K
16. Intrepid Potash, Inc., Form 10-K (total sales ~$255M 2024; potash/Trio/Permian produced-water royalties). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001421461&type=10-K
17. Albemarle Corporation, Form 10-K & "Silver Peak, NV" (only commercial U.S. lithium-brine operation). https://www.albemarle.com/us/en/silver-peak
18. Rio Tinto, "California Operations — U.S. Borax" (Boron, CA; ~30% of world refined borate demand). https://www.riotinto.com/operations/us/california-operations
19. Natural Resource Partners L.P., Form 10-K (49% interest in Sisecam Wyoming soda ash; distributions suspended in soda-ash downturn). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001171486&type=10-K
20. Lithium Americas Corp., Form 10-K (Thacker Pass, NV, development project; initial 40,000 t/y target). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001966983&type=10-K
21. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, "Nonenergy Leasable Minerals" (Mineral Leasing Act of 1920; leasable list). https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/mining-and-minerals/nonenergy-leasable-materials
22. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 43 CFR §3504.21, "Minimum Production Royalties" (phosphate 5%, sodium 2%, potassium 2%, sulfur 5%); BLM final soda-ash royalty rule. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/43/3504.21
23. U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration & Bureau of Labor Statistics, mine-safety and industry injury-rate tables (2024). https://www.msha.gov/data-and-reports/statistics; https://www.bls.gov/iif/
24. WE Soda, "Acquisition of Genesis Alkali" (~$1.425B enterprise value, 2025); Sisecam/Tata/Solvay Green River trona ownership. https://www.wesoda.com/news-resources/information-library/acquisition-of-genesis-alkali-creating-the-worlds-leading-soda-ash-producer/
25. U.S. Department of Justice, "Stone Canyon Required to Divest US Salt to Acquire Morton Salt" (K+S sold Morton for $3.2B, 2021). https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/stone-canyon-required-divest-us-salt-acquire-morton-salt
26. Sweetwater Royalties, "Company and Asset Overview" (~4.5M mineral acres, Green River Basin). https://www.sweetwaterroyalties.com/
27. U.S. EPA, "Phosphogypsum" & Center for Biological Diversity (Florida phosphogypsum >1B tons; 2021 Piney Point 215-million-gallon discharge). https://www.epa.gov/radiation/phosphogypsum
28. Congressional Research Service, "Mining on Federal Lands: Hardrock Minerals" (General Mining Law of 1872; locatable minerals incl. lithium), 2024. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48166
29. VanEck Agribusiness (MOO); iShares MSCI Agriculture Producers (VEGI); Global X Lithium & Battery Tech (LIT); Materials Select (XLB) / SPDR Metals & Mining (XME). https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/investments/agribusiness-etf-moo/
30. J.R. Simplot Company, "Mining & Manufacturing" (privately held; Idaho–Utah phosphate). https://www.simplot.com/mining-and-manufacturing

---

Reliability notes. Business counts and revenue are U.S. Census Bureau — firms, receipts, and concentration from the 2022 Economic Census [2]; establishments, employment, and payroll from County Business Patterns 2023 [3]; the two programs differ in year, coverage, and imputation, so their headcounts don't match exactly. Physical production, prices, and reserves are USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (2024–2025 data), several figures "withheld" (boron, lithium output) or estimated [5]–[11]; USGS commodity values measure broader mineral chains and cannot be added to the Census business total. Company figures are from SEC filings and results releases and reflect the years cited [13]–[20]; market caps in §4 are approximate mid-2026 ballparks, not sourced from filings, and move with the cycle.