Monthly Mineral Production Survey, January 2021

The Monthly Mineral Production Survey (MMNP) estimates the production, shipments and inventories of Canada's leading minerals. This survey covers several metallic minerals (iron, gold, silver, etc.) and non-metallic minerals (diamonds, gypsum, potash, salt, etc.).

The Monthly Survey of Smelters and Metal Refineries (MSMR) covers smelters and metal refineries for a variety of base metals, including copper, lead, nickel and zinc.

The Monthly Mineral Production Survey is now conducted under the Integrated Business Statistics Program as part of the Minerals and Metals Production Statistics Program modernization initiative.

Data from the Monthly Mineral Production Survey and the Monthly Survey of Smelters and Metal Refineries are released every month and a detailed review is released every three months, in the month ending the quarter.

Data are not seasonally adjusted.

Data for the two previous months are subject to revision based on late responses. Data for November and December 2020 have been revised with this release.

Data prior to 2020 can be found on the Production of Canada's Leading Minerals page of the Natural Resources Canada website.

Data for Quebec are collected by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ). In some cases, data may not be available for Quebec, and Quebec's estimates may not be directly comparable with data published for the rest of Canada.

Statistics Canada is working with the ISQ to harmonize survey content so respondents operating in Quebec will eventually be provided a monthly questionnaire similar to that distributed to other provinces and territories.

The value of shipments facilitates comparison between mineral commodities, because the units of measure of quantities produced or shipped vary dramatically from one mineral to another (e.g., iron, in millions of tonnes versus diamonds, in carats).

With this release, units of measure for some refined base metals from the MSMR have been converted from metric tonnes to kilograms to match units of measure of concentrates and recoverable commodities from the MMNP.