Industries based on extractive resources, primarily minerals and oil and gas resources, are important to the Canadian economy in terms of their contributions to employment, gross domestic product (GDP), capital expenditure, construction-related investment, revenues to governments, export value, and investment in Canadian companies. Extractives industries are truly pan-Canadian and important from both a national perspective and a regional perspective, especially for resource regions. The companies are multinational in scope, with global workforces, supply chains, and consumers of their commodities.

As more accessible resources are fully exploited, there are technical and scientific challenges to be overcome to dig deeper or extract lower grade minerals and to drill in more remote or challenging areas to produce oil and gas. There are also challenges arising from the complexity of the underlying economics of extractive industries, which are exacerbated by protracted commodity price variability, interspersed with occasional and surprising price shocks. These difficult economics are further compounded by the increasing challenges resulting from satisfying the perceived and real entitlements of various stakeholders. There is a requirement to achieve and maintain win-win-win relationships among communities, governments, and industry stakeholders, all of which are `invested’ in resource development projects and have increased expectations with respect to returns.

Extractive industries, like many other sectors of the economy, will be significantly impacted by disruptive digital technologies, variously referred to as digitalization, Industry 4.0, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. These technologies include advanced robotics, big data and analytics, artificial intelligence, mobile computing, wearable technology, internet of things (IoT), and autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles. While there is widespread belief that digitalization will transform extractive industries, the timelines and consequences for such a transformation are less clear.

Looking forward, extractive industries operating in Canada must address challenges by developing, adopting, integrating, and applying recent and emerging digital technologies. It is only through innovation that the challenges experienced by extractive industries in recent years, and which are expected to persist or worsen into the future, can be addressed successfully. In addition to helping to address challenges, an embrace of digital technology could lead to new and currently unknown opportunities.

For both mining and oil and gas companies, the future could include heavily digitalized assets (i.e., oil rigs, mining equipment), capable of high levels of autonomy and inter- asset cooperation, operating within challenging natural environments (e.g., a deep or remote mine or far offshore oil field) monitored using advanced embedded and remote intelligent sensor technology. These digitalized assets and intelligent sensor technologies could be connected via innovative communication systems to digital enterprises (i.e., mission control centres and other remote centres of excellence), where experts would monitor production operations remotely, interact via technology with a limited number of field workers at production sites, and perform computational analysis on data collected from remote operations to optimize production, equipment maintenance, and asset utilization, while simultaneously ensuring regulatory compliance. The digital enterprise could be part of a digital world in which technology would be deployed to improve supply chain management and resource management, to balance supply and demand for product, to manage contracting among project partners, and to help secure and maintain public confidence.

Globally, digital technology will transform extractive industries. For Canada, this provides an opportunity to lead in developing and commercializing the enabling technologies, in integrating these technologies into global operations, and in considering the broader socio-economic and regulatory consequences of digitalization of these extractive industries.

Digitalization of extractive industries in Canada will pose opportunities and challenges for a diverse range of stakeholders. In addition to the operating and supply and service companies, individuals and communities will be affected by digitalization, as will governments and institutions (e.g., education systems, regional development organizations, unions, and regulators). Successfully addressing the opportunities and challenges will require early and effective engagement of all stakeholders that is informed by realistic digitalization scenarios, timeframes for their implementation, and assessment of the broader issues and impacts.