Mining's strong recent performance often belies the unprecedented disruption in
economies across the globe; as mining in Africa looks to unlock investment, it must
continue to navigate ongoing uncertainties which bring heightened risk.
Among the widely held assumptions in previous decades, for instance, was that global supply chains would continue to deliver at high efficiency and low cost, according to Andrew van Zyl, director and principal consultant at SRK Consulting.
"This led to considerable progress in developing just-in-time value chains that avoided large inventories, freed up working capital and enabled leaner operations,” said Van Zyl. ”However, the economic lockdowns resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic have exposed the level of fragility in these supply chains, which have had to be reviewed."
