World Distribution of Key Resources and Industries

Why the world map of resources matters

The GS Paper 1 syllabus asks for the distribution of key natural resources across the world, including South Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and the factors responsible for the location of industries in different parts of the world. These topics link geography with geopolitics: control of oil, gas, critical minerals and food shapes trade wars, alliances and India's foreign policy. Questions often ask you to match resources with countries or regions, or to explain why an industry grew where it did.

Fossil fuels

Petroleum

• Largest proven reserves: Venezuela (Orinoco heavy oil belt), Saudi Arabia, Canada (Alberta oil sands), Iran and Iraq. The Persian Gulf region holds nearly half of the world's proven reserves.
• Largest producers: the United States (the top producer since the shale boom, using hydraulic fracturing in the Permian and Bakken basins), Saudi Arabia (Ghawar, the world's largest conventional field) and Russia (West Siberia).
• Other key regions: the North Sea (Norway, UK), Nigeria's Niger delta, Kazakhstan (Tengiz, Kashagan), Brazil's offshore pre-salt fields, and Guyana, the newest big producer.
• Chokepoints: the Strait of Hormuz (about a fifth of world oil trade), the Strait of Malacca, Bab-el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal – disruptions here, as during the Red Sea attacks of 2023–24, raise freight and fuel costs for India.

Natural gas

Russia, Iran and Qatar (the North Field, shared with Iran's South Pars – the world's largest gas field) hold the biggest reserves. The US, Russia, Iran, China and Qatar are top producers. Gas moves by pipelines or as liquefied natural gas (LNG); Qatar, Australia and the US are the largest LNG exporters, and India buys much of its LNG from Qatar under long-term contracts.

Coal

China produces and consumes over half of the world's coal; the US, Russia, Australia and India hold large reserves. Indonesia and Australia are the biggest exporters. Coking coal for steel comes largely from Australia's Queensland (Bowen basin), which is why India imports it.

Metallic minerals

Critical minerals and the energy transition

Critical minerals are those essential for clean energy, electronics and defence but with concentrated supply chains.

• Lithium: Australia (hard rock), and the "Lithium Triangle" of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia (brines in salt flats); China leads processing.
• Cobalt: about 70 per cent from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Nickel: Indonesia (now over half of world output), the Philippines, Russia.
• Rare earth elements: China dominates mining (about 60–70 per cent) and processing (about 90 per cent); also the US (Mountain Pass), Myanmar, Australia. China's export controls in 2023–25 on gallium, germanium, graphite and some rare earths showed the risk of dependence.
• Graphite: China, Mozambique, Madagascar.

India's response: listing of 30 critical minerals (2023); KABIL (Khanij Bidesh India Ltd), which signed a deal for lithium blocks in Argentina's Catamarca province in 2024; partnerships through the Minerals Security Partnership (joined 2023), the Quad and bilateral deals with Australia; and the National Critical Mineral Mission (2025).

Agricultural resources

• Rice: China and India are the largest producers; India is the largest exporter of rice. Monsoon Asia's deltas – Ganga–Brahmaputra, Mekong, Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya – are the core.
• Wheat: China, India, Russia (the largest exporter), the US, Canada, Ukraine, Australia, France; temperate grasslands such as the Prairies, Pampas, Steppes and Downs are wheat belts.
• Coffee: Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, Ethiopia.
• Tea: China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka.
• Cotton: India, China, the US, Brazil, Pakistan.
• Natural rubber: Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, India.
• Cocoa: Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana produce well over half of the world's supply.
• Fisheries: the richest grounds are where cold and warm currents meet or where upwelling brings nutrients – the Grand Banks (Labrador and Gulf Stream), the North Sea's Dogger Bank, Peru's coast (Humboldt upwelling) and the north-west Pacific near Japan (Kuroshio and Oyashio).

Water and forests

About 2.5 per cent of the world's water is fresh, and most of it is locked in ice caps and glaciers. Brazil, Russia, Canada, the US and China have the largest renewable freshwater resources. The largest forest areas are in Russia, Brazil, Canada, the US and China; the Amazon, Congo basin and South-East Asia hold the main tropical rainforests.

Location of industries in the world

The same factors used for India apply worldwide – raw materials, power, labour, market, transport, capital, government policy and agglomeration – but their weight changes with technology.

Shifts in industrial location

• From raw materials to markets and ports: modern steel plants are built on coasts using imported ore and coal (Japan, South Korea, Visakhapatnam).
• Footloose industries: electronics and software depend little on bulky raw materials and can locate almost anywhere with skilled workers and good connectivity.
• Global value chains: production is split across many countries; "China plus one" strategies after the pandemic and US–China tensions are moving some manufacturing to Vietnam, India and Mexico. India's PLI schemes and semiconductor projects (such as Tata–PSMC at Dholera and Micron at Sanand) aim to capture this shift.
• De-industrialisation of old regions such as the Ruhr and the US "Rust Belt" shows that industrial regions rise and decline.

Resources of South Asia

South Asia is rich in people, water and farmland but relatively poor in oil and gas. Bangladesh has natural gas in the east and is the world's second-largest garment exporter; Pakistan has the huge Thar coalfield, the Saindak and Reko Diq copper–gold deposits in Balochistan, and the Indus basin's irrigated farmland; Nepal and Bhutan have large hydropower potential, and Bhutan earns much of its revenue by selling hydropower to India; Sri Lanka produces graphite, tea and gemstones; Myanmar has jade, rubies, natural gas and rare earths; and Afghanistan holds untapped lithium, copper and iron ore. These resources shape India's neighbourhood policy – power trade with Nepal and Bhutan, gas pipelines with Bangladesh, and energy links such as the proposed TAPI pipeline.

Mains practice question

"Control over critical minerals is the new geopolitics." Discuss the global distribution of critical minerals and India's strategy to secure them. (250 words)

Answer framework

• Intro: definition; energy transition.
• Distribution: lithium (Australia, Lithium Triangle), cobalt (DRC), nickel (Indonesia), rare earths (China), processing concentration.
• Risks: export controls, price swings.
• India: 30 minerals list, auctions, KABIL in Argentina, MSP, Quad, NCMM, recycling.
• Conclusion: diversification and domestic processing.