New Briefing Risk Series · “Sixty-five billion announced, eleven billion sold” — the US-Venezuela oil arithmetic

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.

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01 Sept 2026
Latin America · Oil
Sixty-five billion announced. Eleven billion sold.
Washington announced control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude — the deal's own revenue arithmetic sells eleven billion, and producing 65 billion inside the term would need 7.12m bpd sustained.
11bn
SOLD · 65bn ANNOUNCED
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
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

Senior judgement 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.
Background to the practice

Built on assets where governance decides the outcome.

Two decades across mining, energy and heavy industry — the last decade at country and executive level, on assets where governance, capital and politics are the same problem.

Capital governance on a $20bn integrated mine, railway and deepwater port in West Africa — held together across four partners, a sovereign government in political transition, and the multilateral lenders financing it.

Offshore production and multi-billion-dollar licensing in Nigeria. Oilfield services across ten jurisdictions in Southeast Asia. Nickel and cobalt in Madagascar, copper in Botswana, gold across the Sahel.

Iron ore, copper, nickel, gold, oil and gas. Conducted in English, French and Spanish.

The bench

Mandates are staffed, not sold. Across the bench, working coverage spans sixteen countries. ZMK convenes senior specialists against the problem in front of it — seasoned diplomatic and senior policy-making experience where access and licence decide the outcome; professional geology where the resource is the question; offshore, EPCI and SURF leadership, heavy-equipment and logistics practitioners where execution is; C-suite enterprise risk and global HSE leadership where the downside is; and strategy, organisational and human-capital expertise, including ex-BCG, for the structures that carry the decision.

World map marking the sixteen countries covered across the practice, spanning West and Southern Africa, Madagascar, Southeast Asia, Europe and Australia.
Working coverage across the practice · Mining, energy and heavy industry

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.