How big is the oil market? Bigger than all raw metal markets combined…

While the amount of uses in one barrel of oil is quite incredible, we still need a mind-boggling amount of the natural resource each year to sustain consumption.

Oil production per year: 34 billion barrels (incl. other liquids)
Oil market size at current prices: $1.7 trillion per year

To consider how big this actually is, we compare the annual market sizes of all major metals and minerals that are mined throughout the world:

• Gold: $170 billion
• Iron: $115 billion
• Copper: $91 billion
• Aluminum: $90 billion
• Zinc: $34 billion
• Manganese: $30 billion
• Nickel: $21 billion
• Silver: $20 billion
• Other metals: $67 billion (Including platinum, palladium, titanium, tin, moly, uranium, and more)

The total amount works out to $660 billion –  just a tiny fraction of the size of the oil market.

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