New Briefing Make-or-Buy Series · “$8bn built, zero tonnes shipped” — the West African steel base rate

An independent strategy house for natural resources. Senior judgement across the global mineral value chains.

We open cold with the number, then state the case the consensus is missing.
Client work is blinded and delivered on one formula: Context, Framework, Quantified Impact.
Field Notes

Where the numbers stop agreeing with the story.

All analysis →
27 Jul 2026
SE Asia · Nickel
6% to 60%. Control not included.
Indonesia rebuilt the world's nickel supply in a decade — and broke the price, handed the margin to Chinese capital and coal, and built a machine the West's green rules now exclude. Owning a market is not controlling it.
60%
OF WORLD SUPPLY · FROM <6%
21 Jul 2026
Latin America · Risk
270 dead. 100% of dams 'certified stable.'
Vale's disclosures certified 100% of its dams stable. One, rated 1.09 against a 1.5 benchmark, liquefied without warning — the confusion of documentation with control, priced in lives and market cap.
$19bn
ERASED IN ONE SESSION
13 May 2026
Latin America · Copper
$4.3bn out the door. BHP read the cycle.
BHP sold its silver stream rather than defend it — a capital-allocation tell about a major pre-funding its dividend before a copper-heavy capex peak, a contested Samarco appeal, and a Chinese buyer consolidating its iron-ore book.
$4.3bn
SILVER STREAM · SOLD
24 Apr 2026
Middle East · Oil
28× the oil that exists. Trade the shape.
Paper barrels trade at roughly 28× the physical market. Positioning on the spot price misreads a market whose real signal lives in the shape of the curve, not the level.
28×
PAPER TO PHYSICAL
Global Footprint

Where the value chains actually run.

Coverage weighted by mandate depth, not office pins. A larger mark is a chain we price end-to-end — mine, midstream, and market.

Region
Steel
Copper
Battery
Energy
Uranium
West Africa
Andes
Gulf
Central Asia
Australia
West Africa
Steel
Copper
Battery
Energy
Uranium
Andes
Steel
Copper
Battery
Energy
Uranium
Gulf
Steel
Copper
Battery
Energy
Uranium
Central Asia
Steel
Copper
Battery
Energy
Uranium
Australia
Steel
Copper
Battery
Energy
Uranium
Mandate depth Watching Active End-to-end
Mandates

Board-level intellectual capital for the principals who move the chain.

Operators
Make-or-buy, capital sequencing, and value-chain positioning for major diversified miners and energy producers.
Capital
Independent theses and red-team reviews for private-equity investment committees underwriting resource risk.
Research houses
Contrarian supply-demand framing and the bear case the consensus is missing, for macro desks.
Sovereigns
Strategic exposure and resource-sovereignty counsel for sovereign-wealth principals and state holdings.
01 · Context
The base rate, the history, and the number the room has stopped questioning.
02 · Framework
A defensible structure for the decision — not a slide, an argument that survives cross-examination.
03 · Quantified Impact
What it is worth, in figures, with the downside priced before the upside is sold.
Experience predating ZMK Advisory

Twenty years on these chains, in the countries that decide them.

Two decades across mining, energy and heavy industry — the last decade at country and executive level, where governance, capital and politics meet the asset.

Most recently General Manager for Country Strategy and Capital Governance on Rio Tinto’s $20bn Simandou joint venture in Guinea — an integrated mine, a 650 km railway and a 100 Mtpa port — directing a $100M regional capital portfolio and holding governance together across four independent partners and a sovereign government, with the World Bank, the IFC and the IMF at the table.

Before that, the energy value chain: FPSO operations and the $8bn OPL245 tender in Lagos, oilfield services across ten ASEAN jurisdictions, and offshore manufacturing in Malaysia at executive-committee level. Earlier, regional supply chain across five mine sites in four West African jurisdictions, and Ambatovy nickel–cobalt in Madagascar.

Iron ore, copper, nickel, gold, oil and gas. Sixteen countries. Work conducted in English, French and Spanish.

$20bn
JV governed
Simandou, Guinea
650 km
Rail corridor
mine to port
16
Countries
worked in
3
Working
languages

The method, in public.

Independent research, published in full.
The Firm

ZMK Advisory operates at the intersection of global mineral value chains, macro-strategy, and supply–demand dynamics across mining and energy. We advise operators, capital, research houses, and sovereigns — facts-first, and every claim carries a number.