Mining industry risks, and future critical minerals and metals supply chain resilience in emerging markets

Abstract

The mining industry is at a crossroads with the growing demand for exploration and exploitation of critical minerals for the energy transition to reverse the debilitating impacts of global warming such as heat waves, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and biodiversity loss. The industry has a significant role of supplying the critical minerals and metals required for the energy transition. Yet, it is faced with numerous risks which may hinder the uninterrupted supply of essential materials for the transition. This study leverages resilience theory and borrows insights from risk management literature to build a framework of mining industry supply chain resilience to help mining firms and emerging markets nations to seamlessly deliver critical raw materials. In this critical review of literature, we substantiate and expand on the four dimensions of risk categorised as machine and systems factors, human factors, general factors, and environmental factors, which must be addressed in building critical minerals and metals supply chain resilience. It is found that building supply resilience calls for developing strong risk assessment and management capabilities to moderate how the four dimensions of risk relate with supply chain resilience. The findings have significant practical implications for mining industry's ability to seamlessly maintain the supply of critical minerals from emerging markets, and for building theory of critical minerals and metals supply resilience.