A principal-led advisory firm for mining and energy, based in Kuala Lumpur. Four things set us apart from a generalist consulting firm.
Our advice comes from having done the work: running operations, delivering contracts and negotiating with governments and partners. Each mandate draws on a standing bench in six disciplines, and you are told who is on the team before work begins.
Bench specialists are engaged under mandate. Working coverage across the bench spans sixteen countries.
We accept mandates only where we can commit senior people to them. A principal leads each one and answers for the work, which is not handed to a junior team once the mandate is signed.
Jacob Kilby has built and run the supply chains of mines, offshore fields and the plants that supply them, and led the country strategy for Africa's largest integrated mining project.
Led by Jacob Kilby in senior in-house roles, before ZMK Advisory. Clients named only where already on record.
Guinea’s government needed to see what Simandou would do to its economy, and to plan for the windfall.
Designed a CGE modelling programme on GAMS for the Ministry of Economy and Finance, with five two-week workshops for its economists.
About 20 economists trained; the model used by two ministries and handed over.
Rio Tinto’s executives needed an unfiltered Guinean view of Simandou, and of their own conduct.
Designed and ran the panel: two former prime ministers, former ministers, a journalist, a poet and an entrepreneur, sponsored at Group executive level.
Sessions in Conakry and London, 2023–25, feeding the country strategy.
A large agro-industrial operator proposed to replicate its model in Guinea, backed by a catalytic loan.
Field due diligence in the DR Congo, a cross-functional risk assessment, integrity and anti-money-laundering checks, and conditions tied to outside funding.
A $20m investment taken to signature, risk conditions built in.
A $20bn project’s development agenda needed co-funders, and a government ready to manage the windfall.
Two Donor Days, a donor engagement framework and a development-bank playbook; a Guinean delegation to Oxford University’s mining governance course.
Donors convened twice in 2024; senior officials trained at Oxford.
A West African contract miner sold its exploration businesses in Mali and Ghana.
Valued the capital equipment, cleared customs and import permits, negotiated both sales and handed over operations.
Both businesses divested and handed over across two jurisdictions.
Cat 777F haul trucks and D9 dozers were needed at the Mako gold mine in Senegal.
Out-of-gauge sea freight from Tema to Dakar, port handling and customs at both ends, then 650 km by road to the mine.
Fleet delivered to site: one sea leg, two ports, 650 km of road.
Technip’s $150m Asiaflex plant in Malaysia needed an Asian supply base qualified to subsea standards.
Regional sourcing strategy; qualification of safety-critical materials (steel, polymers, welding, coatings, NACE); fabrication yards MMHE-ATB, Singatac and KNM; Lean Six Sigma.
10% cost reduction on $60m of annual spend, across 600 suppliers.
FPSOs Abo and Sendje Berge offshore Nigeria, and a DNV-class life extension for Nigerian Agip Exploration.
Renegotiated the fleet’s frame agreements, ran procurement for the $10m life extension, met Nigerian local content (NAPIMS, NOGID, NIPEX) and localised the team.
40+ frame agreements renegotiated; critical lead times cut by 20%.
ZMK Advisory holds no positions in the assets it writes about. We decline any mandate that conflicts with an existing one, and we say so at first contact. Our most recent Field Notes state our interests in the companies they name.
Most bad resource decisions are not failures of information. They are failures to keep counting once the story became comfortable.
Our work begins where consensus stops doing arithmetic. We reconstruct the base rate, name the assumption the room has quietly set to one, and price the case the narrative leaves out. The output is the number, the framework that produced it, and the impact of acting on it. Every mandate follows that order: context, framework, quantified impact.
Client work is confidential; past projects are shown only in anonymised form.