With bountiful and diverse minerals, Russia, the world's largest country in land area, occupying 75% of the former Soviet Union, had a significant percentage of the world's mineral resources and mineral production. Russia is one of the largest producers of palladium and nickel, as well as of aluminum and platinum-group metals (PGMs), potash, gold, and mined copper. Russia also produced a large percentage of the Commonwealth of Independent States' (CIS) bauxite, coal, cobalt, diamond, lead, mica, natural gas, oil, tin, zinc, and many other metals, industrial minerals, and mineral fuels. Exports under the "Mineral Products" category accounted for around 75% or $80 billion of Russia's exports by value in 2002. Of that total, natural gas exports by value totaled over $15 billion, while crude oil and petroleum products accounted for nearly another $40 billion in 2002.

More than half of Russia's mineral resources were east of the Urals. The most significant regions for mining were Siberia, particularly East Siberia, for cobalt, columbium (niobium), copper (70% of Russia's reserves), gold, iron ore, lead (76% of the country's reserves), molybdenum, nickel (becoming depleted), PGMs, tin, tungsten, zinc, asbestos, diamond, fluorspar, mica, and talc; the Kola Peninsula, for cobalt, columbium, copper, nickel, rare-earth metals, phosphate (the majority, in the form of apatite), and tantalum; North Caucasus (copper, lead, molybdenum, tungsten, and zinc); the Russian Far East (gold, lead, silver, tin, tungsten, and zinc); the Urals, with bauxite, beryllium, cobalt, copper, iron ore, lead, magnesite, nickel, titanium, vanadium, zinc, asbestos, bismuth, potash (96% of the country's reserves), soda ash, talc, and vermiculite; and the region near the Arctic Circle (cobalt, gold, mercury, nickel, tin, phosphate, and uranium). The Kaliningrad region contained 95% of the world's amber deposits, and Russia possessed 10% of the world's copper reserves. Metallurgical enterprises in Kola, North Caucasus, and the Urals were operating on rapidly depleting resource bases, and were experiencing raw material shortages.

A large percentage of Russian reserves were in remote northern and eastern regions that lack transport, were distant from major population and industrial centers, and experience severe climates, and enterprises built there in the Soviet era had curtailed operations sharply. Efforts to develop new large deposits of nonferrous metals near the eastern Baikal-Amur railroad were not progressing. One researcher proposed the creation of small mining enterprises to develop the rich small deposits of eastern Russia. Reserves of iron ore were sufficient to last 15-20 years; those of nonferrous metals, 10-30 years. Reserves of major minerals included potash, 1.8 billion tons; magnesite, 585 million tons; bauxite, 250 million tons; phosphate rock, 240 million tons; asbestos, 100 million tons; fluorspar, 60 million tons; manganese, 15 million tons; nickel, 6.3 million tons; vanadium, 5 million tons; zinc, 4 million tons; antimony, 3 million tons; and lead, 3 million tons.

Output of iron ore (gross weight) was 84.236 million tons in 2002, up from an estimated 82.5 million metric tons in 2001. The largest producer was Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, at Zheleznogorsk and Gubkin, with a 50 million ton per year capacity.

Output of copper was 695,000 metric tons in 2002. The Noril'sk complex, in East Siberia, produced 70% of the country's copper, and planned to increase output of cuprous ore from its Oktyabr'skiy underground mine, from 100,000 tons per year to 1.6 million tons, because the cuprous ores were 40% higher in copper content than the nickel-rich ores. The Oktyabr'skiy mine supplied 70% of Noril'sk's copper output, and was planning to decrease production of the nickel-rich ores.

PGM production included 69,000 kg of palladium, and 34,000 kg of platinum. Sixty percent of PGM output came from the Oktyabr'skiy mine, Noril'sk, and a plan to expand output at the mine of cuprous ores by a factor of 16 was projected to yield more PGMs, as would two new nickel-rich mines, the Glubokiy and the Skalisty, that had a high PGM content.

The output of other metals in 2002 was: bauxite, 3.8 million metric tons (estimated); mined nickel, 310,000 metric tons (estimated); mined zinc, 130,000 metric tons; mined lead, 13,500 metric tons (estimated); magnesite, one million metric tons (estimated); mined tin, 2,900 metric tons (estimated); titanium sponge, from the Perm' region in the Urals, 23,000 metric tons (estimated); molybdenum, 2,900 metric tons (estimated); and mined cobalt, 4,600 metric tons (estimated). Gold mine output was 158,000 kg (estimated). Russia also produced the metal minerals alumina, nepheline concentrate, antimony, white arsenic, bismuth, chromium, manganese, mercury, silver, tungsten, and baddeleyite zirconium. Russia, which had the capacity to mine vanadium, stopped mining beryllium in the mid-1990s, and continued producing cobbed beryl.

Industrial mineral production in 2002 included: phosphate rock (apatite concentrate and sedimentary rock), 4.4 million metric tons (estimated); marketable potash, 4.4 million metric tons (estimated); mica, 100,000 metric tons (estimated); fluorspar concentrate, 200,000 metric tons (estimated); and gem and industrial diamonds, 11.5 million carats each. Russia also produced the industrial minerals amber, asbestos, barite, boron, hydraulic cement, kaolin clay, feldspar, graphite, gypsum, iodine, lime, lithium minerals, nitrogen, salt, sodium compounds, sulfur (including native and pyrites), sulfuric acid, talc, and vermiculite. Russia's only producer of amber, Kaliningrad Amber Works, was the world's largest producer, yielding 441.8 tons in 2000, 364.5 in 1999, and 512.2 in 1998.

Despite decreased metal output compared with the Soviet period (e.g., 20% as much tin), Russia was producing more aluminum, lead, and zinc in 2000 than during the Soviet era. Ten percent of the technology employed in the nonferrous mining and metallurgy sector was rated as world class, labor productivity was one-third below that of advanced industrialized countries, and energy expenditures were 20-30% higher. Another problem was that the resource base for metallurgical enterprises was not competitive in terms of quality, with the exception of antimony, copper, nickel, and molybdenum. More than one-half of industrial mineral output was exported, depriving the domestic sector of needed supplies, especially barite, bentonite, crystalline graphite, and kaolin. Russia has not been successful in attracting foreign investment for developing its mineral deposits, because of high and unpredictable taxes, an unreliable legal system, insecure licensing, unequal treatment between domestic and foreign partners, a weak banking system, and the inability to directly export commodities.