Mining in the United Kingdom

Mining in the United Kingdom produces a wide variety of fossil fuels, metals, and industrial minerals due to its complex geology.

In 2013, there were over 2,000 active mines, quarries, and offshore drilling sites on the continental land mass of the United Kingdom producing £34bn of minerals and employing 36,000 people.

The widespread availability of coal and iron was a significant factor in Europe's Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

With large quantities of important minerals available and easily accessible, the country's economy grew rapidly.

[1][2] Values are in thousands of tonnes The United Kingdom still has large reserves of available fossil fuels.

In addition to the coal being mined on land, large reserves of oil and natural gas are being tapped in the North Sea.

Located in Dorset, the Wytch Farm field is the largest onshore oilfield in Europe[7] with estimated recoverable reserves of 480 million barrels of crude oil.

[12] UK coal production peaked in 1913 at 287 million tonnes, and has been falling ever since, chiefly due to cleaner energy generation and the loss of heavy industry.

[19] Wolf Minerals ceased trading operations on 10 October 2018, as the mine never achieved extraction or financial targets.

However, the location of individual industrial minerals and their quality fundamentally reflects geology and many are highly restricted in their occurrence.

[23] With 80 quarries, Tarmac is the United Kingdom's largest producer of crushed rock, sand, and gravel.

However, there are also a number of smaller producers, chiefly industrial carbonates, silica sand and fluorspar, with a single site.

The industrial minerals sector accounts for a relatively small proportion of Gross Value Added in the UK economy (an estimated £788 million).

In June 2015, the National Parks Authority voted in favour of allowing Sirius Minerals plc to construct the world's largest potash mine on the North York Moors.