Emerging Mining Trends: Preparing Future Mining Professionals

Abstract

The present-day mining operations are increasingly questioned by various stakeholders i.e. government regulators, non-government organizations, investors, environmentalists, land affected people, consumers etc., on account of unsustainable, inefficient, poor planning & implementation practices. Mining companies cannot succeed in the future unless they adopt business risk management principles, implement change management with the emerging digital technologies for transparency and sustainability of operations to renew the confidence of consumers and regulators. In this changing climate, the new generation of mining and other engineers are expected to embrace the emerging digital technologies i.e. real-time data acquisition, improved data analysis, reporting and enhanced process monitoring covering different aspects right from exploration, planning, project execution, production and marketing. This paper focuses on the need for training mining professionals to face the technological challenges that are pertinent to the mining industry in the rapidly changing global commodity markets.