Mining sector strategies for the future – preparing for the next boom
- By: John P Sykes
Posted in: Blog, Exploration, Mineral Economics, Mining, Strategy
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Last year, I helped Allan Trench put together a presentation on mining strategy, which he presented at the Wrays Resource Investment Group Seminar in West Perth, Australia. The presentation was entitled “Mining sector strategies for the future – Preparing for the next boom” and was a general review of the state of strategy in the mining sector and a couple of new ideas. It makes the point that strategy is more than technology and innovation, it’s also about distinctive corporate capabilities, which is not an area of strength in the mining industry. For example, although ‘low-cost’ will remain the dominate strategy in the mining industry, but it still often misunderstood: The ‘low cost’ derives from the company’s capabilities not from the asset’s inherent quality. The other common strategy is ‘the next big thing’ with the aim of hopping from one commodity market to another, hoping to rise the boom up, before prices fall – a risky and fraught strategy, bearing in mind the complex nature of mineral markets, which makes them difficult to predict. All this been said there is still plenty of scope for strategy development in the mining industry – it is far from a boring subject!
The presentation is available on my slideshare: