Field Notes
Where the numbers stop agreeing with the story.
Deep dives on global mineral value chains: macro-strategy, supply–demand risk, with the downside priced before the upside is sold.
Filter 7 field notes
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
07 Aug 2026
West Africa · Manganese
Eighty-three days.
Eramet's strategy document could not survive its own results — €672m of losses in six quarters against €441m of equity.
€672m
LOST · €441m EQUITY LEFT
08 Jul 2026
West Africa · Steel
$8bn built. Zero tonnes shipped.
Forty-six years after groundbreaking, Ajaokuta has produced no commercial steel — the base rate every West African build case forgets to price.
$8bn
SPENT · 0 t OUTPUT
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
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
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%
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
The Commodity Briefings
The value chain, on film.
Short, sourced explainers on the metals that move the transition — the same discipline as the notes above, in ten minutes on screen.