Scope

The Mining sector (sector 21) comprises establishments that extract naturally occurring mineral solids, such as coal and ores; liquid minerals, such as crude petroleum; and gases, such as natural gas. The term mining is used in the broad sense to include quarrying, well operations, beneficiating (e.g., crushing, screening, washing, and flotation), and other preparation customarily performed at the mine site, or as a part of mining activity.

The mining sector distinguishes two basic activities: mine operation and mining support activities. Mine operation includes establishments operating mines, quarries, or oil and gas wells on their own account or for others on a contract or fee basis. Mining support activities include establishments that perform exploration (except geophysical surveying) and/or other mining services on a contract or fee basis (except mine site preparation and construction of oil/gas pipelines).

Establishments in the mining sector are grouped and classified according to the natural resource mined or to be mined. Industries include establishments that develop the mine site, extract the natural resources, and/or those that beneficiate (i.e., prepare) the mineral mined. Beneficiation is the process whereby the extracted material is reduced to particles that can be separated into mineral and waste, the former suitable for further processing or direct use. The operations that take place in beneficiation are primarily mechanical, such as grinding, washing, magnetic separation, and centrifugal separation. In contrast, manufacturing operations primarily use chemical and electrochemical processes, such as electrolysis and distillation. However, some treatments, such as heat treatments, take place in both the beneficiation and the manufacturing (i.e., smelting/refining) stages. The range of preparation activities varies by mineral and the purity of any given ore deposit. While some minerals, such as petroleum and natural gas, require little or no preparation, others are washed and screened, while yet others, such as gold and silver, can be transformed into bullion before leaving the mine site.

Mining, beneficiating, and manufacturing activities often occur in a single location. Separate receipts will be collected for these activities whenever possible. When receipts cannot be broken out between mining and manufacturing, establishments that mine or quarry nonmetallic minerals, beneficiate the nonmetallic minerals into more finished manufactured products are classified based on the primary activity of the establishment. A mine that manufactures a small amount of finished products will be classified in Sector 21, Mining. An establishment that mines whose primary output is a more finished manufactured product will be classified in Sector 31-33, Manufacturing.

Exclusions. Hauling and other transportation beyond the mine property and contract hauling (except out of open pits in conjunction with mining).

The tabulations for this sector do not include central administrative offices, warehouses, or other establishments that serve mining establishments within the same organization. Data for such establishments are classified according to the nature of the service they provide. For example, separate headquarters establishments are reported in NAICS Sector 55, Management of Companies and Enterprises.

The reports described below exclude establishments of firms with no paid employees. These "nonemployers", typically self-employed individuals or partnerships operating businesses that they have not chosen to incorporate, are reported separately in Nonemployer Statistics. The contribution of nonemployers, relatively moderate for this sector, may be examined at www.census.gov/nonemployerimpact

The reports described below cover all mining establishments with one or more paid employees.

Definitions. Industry categories, NAICS Codes, Titles, and Descriptions and Other terms are found in American Factfinder by clicking on file titles, column heads and NAICS codes within each data file.

Geographic areas covered

  1. The United States as a whole.
  2. States and the District of Columbia.
  3. Offshore Areas. Data for offshore areas that are part of Alaska, California, Louisiana, and Texas are included in their respective state area reports and represent offshore operations on these state offshore leases and all federal offshore leases defined by their state plane coordinate systems. State offshore includes the areas extending from the coastline up to 3 geographical miles distance, except for Texas and Florida, which extend 3 marine leagues from the coastline in the Gulf of Mexico. Data for offshore areas not associated with a state are in an Offshore Areas geographic report that includes the following areas:
    1. Atlantic Offshore: Atlantic Federal Area, New Hampshire state offshore, Maine state offshore, Massachusetts state offshore, Connecticut state offshore, New York state offshore, New Jersey state offshore, Delaware state offshore, Maryland state offshore, Virginia state offshore, North Carolina state offshore, South Carolina state offshore, Georgia state offshore, and Florida state Atlantic offshore.
    2. Northern Gulf of Mexico Offshore: Northern Gulf of Mexico Federal Areas defined by the Universal Transverse Mercator Coordinate System (including areas generally south of the state plane coordinate systems of Louisiana and Texas), Mississippi state offshore, Alabama state offshore, and Florida state Gulf offshore.
    3. Pacific Offshore: Pacific Federal areas defined by Universal Transverse Mercator Coordinate System, Oregon state offshore, and Washington state offshore.

    Dollar values

    All dollar values presented are expressed in current dollars; i.e., 2007 data are expressed in 2007 dollars, and 2002 data, in 2002 dollars. Consequently, when making comparisons with prior years, users of the data should consider the changes in prices that have occurred.

    All dollar values are shown in thousands of dollars.

    Comparability of the 2002 and 2007 economic censuses

    Both the 2007 Economic Census and the 2002 Economic Census present data based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). There were several revisions to selected industries in the mining sector, for 2007. These changes are:

    More detailed information of NAICS changes from 2002 to 2007, may be examined at http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/concordances/concordances.html.

    Reliability of data

    All data compiled in the economic census are subject to nonsampling errors. Nonsampling errors can be attributed to many sources during the development or execution of the census:

    The Census Bureau obtains limited information extracted from administrative records of other federal agencies, such as gross receipts from federal income tax records and employment and payroll from payroll tax records. This information is used in conjunction with other information available to the Census Bureau to develop estimates for nonemployers, small employers, and other establishments for which responses were not received in time for publication.

    Availability of more frequent economic data

    The County Business Patterns program offers annual statistics on the number of establishments, employment, and payroll classified by industry within each county, and Statistics of U.S. Businesses provides annual statistics classified by the employment size of the enterprise, further classified by industry for the United States, and by broader categories for states and metropolitan areas.

    Contacts for data users

    Questions about these data may be directed to the U.S. Census Bureau, Manufacturing & Construction Division, Information Services Center, 301-763-4673 or ask.census.gov.

    Abbreviations

    The following abbreviations are used with these data:

    (CC)Consolidated city
    (IC)Independent city
    nskNot specified by kind