Abstract

The upstream segment of the minerals supply chain –MiSC– has a crucial role in a sustainable global future by securing the supply of minerals –commodity– for developing renewable-energy technologies. However, due to its nature, the MiSC’s upstream segment is prone to negative events. These could disrupt the commodity supply's security and prevent it from achieving global sustainable goals. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of how a disruptive state is perceived in this segment of the MISC is necessary to develop more resilient strategies, thus ensuring sufficient commodity supply. This study aims to understand disruption in the MiSC’s upstream segment, supporting a multiple case study methodology carried out in the Chilean MiSC’s upstream segment context. Findings establish that a disruption in the MISC's upstream segment perceives as the impact of any event in the mining life-cycle generating a momentary or indefinite operational continuity suspension of its business processes, resulting in negative business performance. Also, two disruption scenarios are inferred, “production discontinuity” and “production closure”. This study contributes to the current literature on Risk and Resilience supply chains –SC–, expanding the knowledge of disruption in a new industrial context, such as MiSC’s upstream segment. Furthermore, future researchers are encouraged to extend the knowledge of Risk and Resilience SC in the same industrial context of this work.