Natural resources Near future series: The near future of mining 2023

Gone are the days when miners could simply explore for minerals. Looking ahead, successful miners will be those that also mine for innovation.

Mining for innovation means organisations must develop new products and processes internally to maximise their financial and talent resources. They must also consider acquiring new resources from outside their organisation in order to give them a more sustainable path forward. At the same time, both types of ‘innovation mining’ will require new processes and protocols to manage the cyber risk that comes with new, digitally enabled discoveries. 

Following on from BDO’s global 2020 Near Future series, the global natural resources team published further Near future predictions for 2023, primarily to see how the original 2020 predictions were tracking. The latter were ranked and commented on, and some new predictions looking out to 2023 provided in addition. 

This Mining edition of Near futures covers country spotlights into South Africa, the USA, Canada, UK and Australia.

These were BDO’s global predictions concerning how organisations around the world would be ‘mining for innovation’ by 2023:
  • The arms race around rare earths will quicken, as growing geopolitical tensions impact global trade and countries battle to lead manufacturing and technology innovation
  • Secondary raising will be a concept of the past. The rise of alternative financing solutions, which reduce the burden on mining companies’ balance sheets, will grow in popularity, hitting stock exchanges hard
  • Miners will become an open book because of the pressure from investors to demonstrate their social licence to operate. Miners will use blockchain technology to validate their operations
  • Artificial intelligence will be commonplace in mining operations, as miners use it to interpret data from smart sensors and machine interconnection, as well as to improve operational safety and efficiency through unmanned, AI-enabled technologies. This will transform mining into one of the safest occupations of its kind.
Please download the 2023 Report here:


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