Natural Resources

​This sector comprises companies that are involved in a wide range of commodity-related manufacturing industries. This denotes materials that came from nature in an unprocessed state, including chemicals, construction materials, glass, paper and forest products (such as timber tracts, forest nurseries and related activities such as reforestation and the gathering of gums, barks, balsam needles, tree seeds, and other forest products), and metals, minerals and mining companies, as well as producers of steel. This includes companies engaged in the exploration, extraction and processing of minerals and ores. Extraction of minerals is undertaken by such processes as underground or open-cut mining, dredging, quarrying, the operation of wells or evaporation pans, or by recovery from ore dumps or tailings, and all supplementary activities aimed at preparing the raw materials for manufacturing. Ores are valued chiefly for the metals contained, to be recovered for use as such or as constituents of alloys, chemicals, pigments or other products. Forest products comprise two categories of materials--paper and allied products, and lumber and wood products. These are often combined, as many companies that produce pulp and paper also produce lumber and wood products in integrated operations