Ore

Where to find asteroids
An asteroid belt. The ship in the middle is sitting at the warp-in point.

Asteroid belt geometry

Each mineable asteroid contains only one kind of ore and can be found in:
 * Asteroid belts
 * Deadspace pockets
 * Cosmic anomalies

Asteroid belts
Virtually every star system in Eve (with the notable exception of Jita) has at least one asteroid belt. Most star systems have several -- up to more than a dozen in some cases. These belts are listed on the overview and the right-click menu, and always have the same geometry: a rough semicircle of asteroids, approximately 50 km in diameter. A ship warping to an asteroid belt's beacon (through the right-click menu or the overview) will warp to the center of the semicircle. Note that mining lasers have an (unboosted) range of only 10-15 km, so in order to mine asteroids a ship has to fly closer to the belt after warping in. If you want to save on travel time, you can warp to mining bookmarks instead.

A given belt will have a mixture of asteroids containing different ores. The mixture and size of the asteroids (i.e. how much ore each asteroid contains) is determined by the system's location in the Eve universe and its security status (see asteroid distribution below). The asteroids in a belt will respawn after downtime. The websites Ombeve and Dotlan have maps showing the number of belts per system.

Deadspace pockets
Mineable asteroids can also spawn in deadspace pockets, such as the ones created for missions. Unlike asteroid belts, these are not organized into a set shape. Some are composed of dense clumps of asteroids, while others are scattered fields. For a list of which missions' deadspace pockets contain asteroids, see Mission Mining or Eve-survival.

Cosmic anomalies
Lastly, one kind of cosmic anomaly contains asteroids (the others contains hostile rats). The asteroids in cosmic anomalies tend to be a little larger and contain rarer ore than the normal asteroid belts in a star system. However, unlike asteroid belts, once all the asteroids in the anomaly have been mined, the anomaly disappears.

Note that in many locations you will find decorative asteroids, which cannot be mined or otherwise interacted with. These will have colorful names such as "Snake-shaped Asteroid".

Asteroid distribution
Asteroid distribution

An asteroid belt, as seen on the overview. Note the belt's warp-in point (marked with an inverted triangle), as well as the variety of different asteroid types (all labelled according to what kind of ore they contain).

The Eve universe can be divided into four quarters: Each of these four quarters has its own set of asteroid types. Additionally, the lower the security rating of a system, the rarer the asteroid types that can be found there. Finally, each system can also include all the asteroid types of same-quarter higher-security systems. For example, a Gallente system with a security rating of 0.7 will not only include Omber asteroids, but also Veldspar, Scordite, and Plagioclase asteroids. The following table also includes the distribution of ice asteroids. For more details, see Ice Mining. In general, the rarer the ore, the higher its volume per unit (e.g. one unit of Veldspar has a volume of 0.1 m3, whereas one unit of Arkonor has a volume of 16 m3). Since mining lasers mine a given volume of ore per minute, it takes longer to mine the rarer ore types. Additionally, each ore reprocesses into a different set of minerals. For details, see Reprocessing.
 * The Amarr quarter (includes systems held by the Amarr, Ammatar, Khanid, Blood Raiders, and Sansha's Nation)
 * The Caldari quarter (includes systems held by the Caldari and Guristas)
 * The Gallente quarter (includes systems held by the Gallente and Serpentis)
 * The Minmatar quarter (includes systems held by the Minmatar and Angel Cartel)

Note that mining Mercoxit requires the Deep Core Mining skill as well as special mining modules such as Deep Core Miners or Deep Core Strip Miners. All other ore types can be mined with all types of ore mining lasers or strip miners.

Ore variants
Each asteroid type has two further subtypes that yield more (+5% / +10%) minerals when reprocessed. Otherwise they are identical in every way to their base ore, and are found in the same regions, but in lower quantities. For instance, if an asteroid belt has Omber asteroids, it will also have some Silvery Omber asteroids and a few Golden Omber asteroids. If you get the chance, you should always mine the higher-yield variants before mining the base ore.

Ore Chart
1234   Green backgrounds indicate the best value per m3 for that mineral.

Batch Size

This is the minimal amount of ore you need for reprocessing. All values in the table (with the exception of volume) are based on one full batch.

Wiki: From EVE University, revised by Evareus