October 29, 2026 • 5 min read
Resilience is the real competitive advantage
Why efficiency is no longer enough
For years, businesses across the energy, chemicals and resources sectors have focused on efficiency. Leaner supply chains. Tighter inventories. More specialised infrastructure. More connected value chains. This has delivered value but it’s also created exposure.
Recent global disruption has made one thing clear: efficiency matters, but it’s no longer enough.
The organizations best positioned to perform through the decade ahead won’t rely on efficiency alone. They’ll build resilience across entire systems, not just asset by asset.
Today’s operating environment is characterized by geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain volatility, climate‑related disruptions, workforce constraints, and increasing pressure on critical minerals and energy systems. These pressures expose a common challenge: many industrial systems were designed for stability, but now operate in a world defined by disruption and uncertainty.
Thinking beyond the immediate event
Most discussions surrounding major disruptions focus on the immediate event itself. However, the greater challenge often lies in the cascading impacts that emerge across interconnected industries long after the initial disruption has occurred.
Global supply chains are no longer linear. They are highly complex networks where a constraint in one sector can quickly affect multiple others. Energy influences chemicals, chemicals influence mining, mining supports manufacturing, and all are connected through transportation, financial markets and shared infrastructure.
As a result, recovery is rarely as simple as restarting physical flows.
A disruption may last days or weeks. But its effects can last months, as markets rebalance, inventories recover, logistics normalise and critical materials become available again. Research from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Brookings Institution highlights how disruptions to energy transportation routes can have far‑reaching consequences extending well beyond immediate commodity markets.[1] Reference 1 [2] Reference 1
The lesson is clear: resilience must be built around entire systems, not individual assets.
Hidden dependencies create hidden risks
One of the most overlooked aspects of resilience is understanding the dependencies that sit several layers beneath primary operations.
For example, sulfur is a by-product of oil and gas refining and serves as a key feedstock for sulfuric acid production. Sulfuric acid, in turn, is essential for processing copper, nickel, uranium and numerous other critical minerals required for electrification and energy transition initiatives.[3] Reference 1
When refining activity slows or becomes constrained, sulfur availability can decline. This creates pressure downstream in mining and metals processing, even when mines themselves continue to operate normally.
Similarly, fertilizer production depends on globally integrated energy and chemical supply chains. Supply disruptions can affect agricultural inputs, impact future planting cycles and potentially influencing food production and pricing months later.[4] Reference 1
These knock-on effects can become more difficult to identify and manage than the original disruption.
Organizations that understand these interdependencies gain a substantial advantage in anticipating risks before they become operational challenges.
Why efficiency alone is not enough
Many industrial systems were intentionally designed to eliminate redundancy. From a cost perspective, this made sense. Excess inventory, spare capacity, alternative suppliers and flexible infrastructure were often viewed as inefficiencies.
Redundancy is not a waste; it’s resilience by design.
However, recent events have demonstrated that redundancy is not waste; it’s resilience by design.
The World Economic Forum has highlighted how concentrated supply chains and dependencies on critical commodities can amplify disruptions across multiple industries simultaneously.[4] Reference 1 Similar observations have been made by analysts examining the growing complexity of global energy and industrial systems.[1] Reference 1 [2] Reference 1
Resilient organizations recognize that flexibility creates value. That can mean:
- diversifying sources of supply
- increasing visibility across value chains
- building optionality into logistics networks
- designing facilities that can accommodate varying feedstocks
- maintaining strategic inventories of critical inputs
- identifying alternative production pathways before they’re needed.
For example, while BHP prioritizes efficiency through their individual operating unit within their BHP operating system, their portfolio strategy is very different. BHP maintains a diversified portfolio of tier-one assets across iron ore, copper, metallurgical coal and potash rather than concentrating on a single commodity. While a pure-play strategy can maximize operational focus and efficiency, BHP's multi-commodity approach provides a natural hedge against market volatility, as different commodities often experience different market cycles. This diversification stabilizes cash flow, supports consistent capital returns, and enables long-term investment and growth even when one commodity market faces a downturn.
The aim isn’t to eliminate risk. It’s to stop disruption becoming business-critical failures.
How digital tools strengthen resilience
Building resilience requires more than contingency planning. It requires the ability to respond faster than disruptions unfold. Digital tools are becoming central to this.
Advanced analytics can help organizations identify vulnerabilities across complex supply networks. Scenario modeling can simulate the operational impact of supply constraints before they occur. Real‑time operational data can improve decision making during periods of uncertainty and help organizations dynamically adjust production, logistics and maintenance strategies.
ExxonMobil have deliberately prioritized a ‘fortress balance sheet’, maintaining low debt and disciplined capital spending rather than maximizing short‑term returns through aggressive leverage. While this approach may sacrifice some upside during boom cycles, it provides the financial resilience to weather oil price downturns, protect dividends, continue investing in growth and acquire high‑quality assets at discounted valuations when competitors are under financial stress. As a result, ExxonMobil turns market volatility into a strategic advantage, strengthening its long-term competitive position.
The difference between resilient and non-resilient organizations can often be speed. Companies that can rapidly understand impacts, evaluate options and implement mitigation strategies recover faster and sustain less operational disruption than those waiting for conditions to return to normal when normal can be very dynamic. Increasingly, resilience is becoming very important and not only a digital challenge but more of an operational one.
Where we play a role
Customers need to understand how disruption moves across their whole system, not just one asset, site or supply chain.
The biggest risks often sit in the gaps. Seeing how risks connect across sectors, assets and value chains gives customers a clearer picture of what could affect their operations, and where to act.
Success means looking beyond immediate operational concerns and understand broader system-wide impacts. Whether assessing supply chain vulnerabilities, evaluating asset flexibility, modelling disruption scenarios, or deploying digital solutions to improve operational agility, our focus is helping organizations strengthen resilience across the entire value chain.
In practice, this means helping customers identify critical dependencies, stress-test operating models and develop strategies that maintain performance under changing conditions.
Resilience is more than a defensive strategy. It’s becoming a core business capability.
The shift that matters
Resilience isn’t simply about responding to disruption. It’s about designing systems that continue to perform despite disruption.
The specific trigger may vary, whether geopolitical tensions, supply constraints, trade restrictions, climate events, infrastructure failures, or shifts in global demand. What matters is how organizations prepare.
Which is why the most important question is no longer, “How do we recover from disruption?” It should be, “How do we design systems that remain effective when disruption occurs?”
Organizations that embrace this shift will be better positioned to protect operations and create long-term competitive advantage in an increasingly uncertain world.
References
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U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA),
World Oil Transit Chokepoints.
↩ Back to first reference ↩ Back to second reference -
Brookings Institution, From Chokepoint to Crisis: The Strait of Hormuz and Global Oil Markets.
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Modern War Institute,
The Chokepoint We Missed: Sulfur, Hormuz, and the Threats to Military Readiness.
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World Economic Forum, Beyond Oil and LNG: Commodities Impacted by Supply Chain Disruptions.
↩ Back to first reference ↩ Back to second reference - Reuters, How Disruptions Affect Global Oil and LNG Supply Chains.
↩ Back to reference - Stimson Center, Global Markets and the Economic Shockwaves of Supply Chain Disruptions
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Contributing authors
Dr Tim Ong
Tim Ong is a Customer Engagement Partner, Digital at Worley Consulting. He works across energy, chemicals and resources, helping customers use digital technology and cross-sector insight to build operational resilience in increasingly connected systems.
Anthony Downs
Anthony Downs is a Customer Engagement Partner, Digital at Worley Consulting. He works in the resources sector, with a focus on automation, digital infrastructure and practical field experience that helps customers build optionality while maintaining efficient operations.
