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IFRS® Accounting Standards

Extractive Activities

Summary

Canadian entities with extractive activities are important to the Canadian and global markets. Most of these entities apply IFRS® Accounting Standards as their financial reporting framework.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued IFRS 6 Exploration for and Evaluation of Mineral Resources as an interim standard. The IASB is gathering evidence to help decide whether to start a project to develop proposals to replace IFRS 6. The Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) is supporting these critical sectors by participating in this research project. 

Staff Contact(s)

Jayshal Rajendra Daya, CPA, CA Principal, Accounting Standards Board

Lauren Pennycook, CPA, CA Principal, Accounting Standards Board

Project Status

  • Information gathering

    In 2018, the IASB started gathering evidence to help it decide the scope and direction of a research project.

    AcSB staff prepared a Research Update to assist the IASB in identifying topics it should consider in its research.

    In September 2021, the IASB tentatively decided that the project’s scope and objectives should be to explore the following aspects of IFRS 6:

    • developing requirements or guidance to improve the disclosure objectives and requirements about an entity’s exploration and evaluation expenditure and activities; and

    • removing the temporary status of IFRS 6.

    The IASB also made a series of other more detailed tentative decisions.

    In September 2023, the IASB completed its comprehensive review of the accounting for extractive activities and decided to stop the project and publish a project summary.

    The IASB also decided to add to the maintenance project pipeline a project to remove the temporary nature of the exemption in IFRS 6 from the application of paragraphs 11–12 of IAS 8, Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors.

    The IASB published a Project Summary in December 2023.

  • Approving project
  • Engaging Communities
  • Deliberating feedback
  • Final pronouncement

Read the IASB’s Project Summary

Disclaimer

This project summary has been prepared for information purposes only. Decisions reported are tentative and reflect only the current status of discussions on this project, which may change after further Board deliberations. Decisions to publish Handbook material are final only after a formal voting process.