Experts look at challenges in natural resources sector

Dubai / Emirates Business

Difficulties arising from operating in more technically-challenging physical environments is the number one risk on the minds of executives in the natural resources industry in the MENA region, according to a new Natural Resources Risk Index and top ten ranking released by Willis Towers Watson (NASDAQ: WLTW), the leading global advisory, broking and solutions company.
According to Willis Towers Watson’s Natural Resources Risk Index 2016, the top three risks affecting the industry in the region are: operating in more technically challenging physical environments; increased cyber security and data
privacy risk necessitating increased investment in technologies and strategies; vulnerability to reclamation obligations, particularly threats to self-insured status. Increased complexity of regulation /
cost of compliance; natural disasters and epidemics and increasingly complex asset portfolios and ecosystems are ranked fourth, fifth and six in the Index respectively.
The Index was compiled using responses from 350 C-suite executives across the natural resources industry – including oil, gas and chemicals, power and utilities and metals and mining –
to rank 50 risks in accordance with their impact and how difficult each one is to manage.
According to the ranking, executives are also seriously concerned about the general shortage of industry specific skills (e.g. experience overseeing large-scale projects) (ranked #7), increased political risk (ranked #8), currency and interest rate fluctuations creating uncertainty (ranked #9) and the increasing threats to stability of operations and trade (ranked #10).
Nick Dussuyer, Head of Natural Resources at Willis Towers Watson, said: “Our first Natural Resources Risk Index shows that the industry is united on its views of the key risks it faces today and over the next ten years. Certainly geopolitical instability and regulatory change, coupled with digitalisation and new technologies, have created new risks for the industry to understand and mitigate. At the same time, a changing industry landscape provides opportunities for companies willing to embrace a degree of risk.
“Expanding into new, more demanding areas without overexposing businesses to risk is a top challenge for today’s executives. Unearthing new stores of natural resources has become an increasingly challenging task. It requires producers to adapt to ever more demanding environments and technically complex projects during a period when the pressure to generate returns and provide the highest possible operational efficiency is greater than ever. The cost of getting things wrong is also at an unprecedented high.”
Commenting on other findings from the research, Dussuyer said: “Industry executives in the region worry most about regulation and geopolitics. Five years after the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, some of the most resource-rich countries in the world or their neighbors have fallen victim to instability and are a continuing source of concern.”
“But even more than geopolitical risk, the executives we surveyed are troubled by shifts in the way that today’s governments approach regulation. In the next decade, it is likely government regulation of the industry will increase. If companies want a role in shaping the regulatory agenda and to have a voice, they need to engage proactively with government and other key stakeholders and put forward their point of view”, added Dussuyer.
Natural resource executives are also deeply concerned about the risks associated with digitalisation and new technologies, according to the research.
“Companies’ growing dependency on IT infrastructure has ushered in a litany of new risks of which executives would never have dreamed of, 20 or even 10 years ago,” said Dussuyer. “In all its varieties — from unintended data breaches to cyber-terrorism — cyber-risk is now a boardroom issue for the industry.”
The global research found marked differences between how natural resources organisations in different regions of the world view risk, with the number one perceived risk varying significantly across the globe. While in the MENA region operating in more technically challenging physical environments was perceived as the number one risk, the North American natural resource leaders are preoccupied by increased cyber-security and data privacy risks. On the other hand, in South America, uncertainty over climate change and environmental policy was the top concern.