Dozens of locations around the world are defined by their focus on extracting a single nonrenewable resource, whether that’s oil, coal, natural gas, or uranium. These sites supply enormous shares of global or national energy and shape the economies of entire regions. Here are the most significant examples, organized by resource type.
Oil: Ghawar Field, Saudi Arabia
The Ghawar Field in eastern Saudi Arabia is the largest conventional oil field ever discovered, with an estimated 71 billion barrels of oil in place and roughly 70 billion barrels in remaining reserves. Operated by Saudi Aramco, Ghawar has been producing oil since the 1950s and remains the single most important crude oil source on the planet. To extend its productive life, Saudi Aramco is piloting enhanced oil recovery programs that inject water or gas into the reservoir to push more oil to the surface.
Oil and Gas: Permian Basin, United States
Stretching across west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the Permian Basin is the highest-producing oil region in the United States. It currently averages about 6.6 million barrels of oil per day, with forecasts holding near that level through 2027. The basin also produces large volumes of natural gas alongside its oil output.
The Permian Basin also illustrates the environmental tensions around nonrenewable resource extraction. Methane intensity, which measures how much natural gas escapes into the atmosphere relative to total production, sits at 1.2% on the New Mexico side of the basin compared to 3.1% on the Texas side. New Mexico enacted comprehensive methane rules in 2021 requiring operators to minimize venting and flaring, conduct regular leak detection, and build gas capture infrastructure. Oil and gas production on New Mexico’s side has more than doubled since 2020, yet methane intensity has dropped significantly.
Coal: Powder River Basin, United States
The Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana is the single largest coal-producing region in the country. Just 16 mines in the basin produce 43% of all U.S. coal. Production peaked at 496 million short tons in 2008, then dropped to 314 million short tons by 2016 as natural gas and renewables displaced coal in electricity generation. Output has since stabilized around 324 million short tons.
The coal from the Powder River Basin is sub-bituminous, meaning it has lower sulfur content than coal mined in Appalachia. That made it attractive to power plants trying to meet air quality standards, which is why production shifted so heavily to this region over the past few decades. The mines are massive open-pit operations where thick coal seams sit relatively close to the surface.
Natural Gas: North Field, Qatar
Qatar’s North Field is the world’s single largest natural gas reservoir, and it is the reason Qatar ranks as the third-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) behind the United States and Australia. QatarEnergy currently manages 105 billion cubic meters per year of LNG under long-term contracts ranging from 10 to 25 years.
The field is undergoing a major expansion. Six new processing trains from the North Field East and South Expansion projects are expected to come online sequentially every three months between mid-2026 and late 2027, adding 65 billion cubic meters per year of new LNG capacity. Combined with other projects, Qatar will bring 88 billion cubic meters per year of new capacity from the North Field alone, making it the second-largest LNG expansion in the world after the United States.
Uranium: McArthur River Mine, Canada
Located in northern Saskatchewan, the McArthur River Mine is one of the world’s highest-grade uranium deposits. It was designed to produce 18 million pounds of uranium oxide per year, making it a critical fuel source for nuclear power plants worldwide. The mine uses specialized techniques because the ore is so concentrated that conventional mining methods would expose workers to unacceptable radiation levels. Remote-controlled equipment and water-jet boring systems extract ore from deep underground.
Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin, where McArthur River sits, contains several of the richest uranium deposits on Earth. The region’s economy is tightly linked to uranium mining, much the way coal regions in the U.S. depend on their local resource.
Multiple Resources: Ordos Basin, China
Not every location focuses on just one nonrenewable resource. The Ordos Basin in north-central China is the country’s largest natural gas province and a major coal producer. By 2017, gas fields in the basin had cumulatively produced over 378 billion cubic meters of gas, with more than 90% classified as coal-derived gas. The Sulige gas field alone, a super giant field within the basin, produced about 21.3 billion cubic meters in 2017, accounting for 14.2% of China’s total gas output that year.
How Nonrenewable Resources Shape Local Economies
When a location focuses on a nonrenewable resource, the surrounding economy often revolves around it. Appalachia offers a well-studied example. Coal mining in the region supported roughly 135,000 jobs across mining counties, representing about 4.4% of total employment in those areas. In West Virginia alone, coal mining directly employed about 20,000 workers while supporting an additional 25,000 jobs in the supply chain (equipment, transportation, services) and 17,000 more in downstream industries like electricity generation.
Kentucky’s coal industry supported nearly $11 billion in economic activity and more than 70,000 jobs statewide. But these economies are vulnerable. Coal employment across Appalachia fell 27% between 2005 and 2015, with Central Appalachia hit hardest, dropping from 32,700 mining jobs to 19,600. Payroll levels in that sub-region fell roughly 40%. When the resource declines or market conditions shift, communities built around extraction face serious economic disruption.
This pattern repeats globally. Regions that focus heavily on a single nonrenewable resource benefit from high-paying extraction jobs and strong tax revenue during peak production, but they carry the risk of economic decline as reserves deplete or demand shifts toward alternative energy sources.