Practice 03 · Resource Risk & Governance
The risks that sit outside the model.
We find the political, jurisdictional, governance and supply-chain risks a valuation treats as a footnote until they become the valuation, and gate them down to the few a board can act on, each with an owner and the date that closes it. Documentation is not control.
What we cover
Four domains where value is lost to risks the plan never priced.
Political & sovereign
Transition · nationalism · renegotiation
Changes of government, resource nationalism and the renegotiation of terms once capital is sunk and leverage has shifted to the host state.
We deliver
Sovereign risk map · scenario brief
Licensing & jurisdiction
Permits · fiscal regime · export controls
Cross-border licensing, permitting and fiscal stability, including extraterritorial rules that reach an asset from outside its own jurisdiction.
We deliver
Jurisdictional review · licence exposure register
Governance & assurance
Reporting · assurance · board oversight
The gap between what is reported and what is controlled: reporting lines, assurance and decision rights, and whether the board is told about the risk the asset actually carries.
We deliver
Governance review · board risk brief
Supply-chain sovereignty
Chokepoints · processing · concentration
Where processing, logistics or a single counterparty controls the route to market, and what happens to the asset when that control is used.
We deliver
Chokepoint map · exposure assessment
Principal’s record
Sovereign capital, country risk and critical supply, first-hand.
$1bn
Venture capital fund, Guinea
Framework designed at Rio Tinto to bring foreign capital from institutions, philanthropies and private wealth into large-scale non-mining investment.
$20m
Agro-industrial investment, DR Congo
Due diligence and risk review, completed on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Critical vendors
Technip's Asiaflex plant, Malaysia
Qualification and strategic sourcing of Asian vendors for the start-up, with critical suppliers qualified to API welding and non-destructive testing standards.
From the principal’s record Case file: Due diligence before the loan →Case file: A country panel of elders →
From register to decision
Three steps cut the register to what a board can act on.
A risk register without a gate only ever grows.
01 · Scan
Trends and events, each anchored to a dated, attributable source rather than to a forecast.
02 · Gate
Four binding gates: materiality, uncertainty, horizon and evidence. Each failure is dropped, refused, or routed to the line register or the watchlist.
03 · Own
What survives gets an owner, a treatment and the date that closes it, so it can leave the register.
The method, published in full
A gated model for emerging risk in mining: ten in, two out.
Our Context, Framework, Quantified Impact method, executed and published. Six trends scanned, ten implications evidenced, four gates applied. Two entries survive.
6
Trends scanned
10
Implications
8
To the line
2
Survive
Cycle 1, 2026 · Information cut-off 11 September 2026 · Twelve pages · Seventeen sources, fifteen open access
Who commissions it
Sovereigns, operator boards and investment committees.
Sovereign-wealth funds & state holdings
Exposure to a host state, a renegotiation or a strategic resource.
For sovereigns →
Operator boards
The risks the asset carries that the board is not yet told about.
For operators →
Investment committees
Sovereign, jurisdictional and counterparty risk priced before the commitment.
For capital →
The method, applied in public
Five published Field Notes on risk the market priced late.
Documentation mistaken for control, ownership mistaken for control of a market, and a counterparty’s paperwork taken on trust.
26 Oct 2026 · China · Copper
Maike Metals · He Jinbi · Xiamen Xinda · ICBC
RMB67.8 Billion of Claims: The Fall of He Jinbi
Maike Metals handled a quarter of China's copper imports on a trading margin of about one per cent. Its founder has been sentenced to life, according to Bloomberg, and has appealed. The filings show who was paid, and who was handed trust units carried at zero.
Risk Series · 32 sources →
23 Oct 2026 · West Africa · Iron Ore
Simandou · Rio Tinto · Baowu · Guinea
The Fiscal Return Behind Guinea's $200 Billion Bet
Guinea's Simandou 2040 programme is costed at US$200 billion. The official fiscal model puts the state's revenue from Simandou at about US$20 billion over the same fifteen years, most of it after 2030.
Risk Series · 48 sources →
14 Oct 2026 · SE Asia · Iron Ore
Glencore · Radiant World · Deutsche Bank
Paid on 6 March, Re-dated 12 March
An iron ore invoice paid by Glencore was re-dated and sold to a bank within days. It sits at the centre of a three-country fight between Glencore, its former partner and their lenders.
Risk Series · 25 sources →
27 Jul 2026 · SE Asia · Nickel
Indonesia · Tsingshan
6% to 60%. Control not included.
Indonesia rebuilt the world's nickel supply in a decade. It also 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.
Value-Chain Series · 20 sources →
21 Jul 2026 · Latin America · Risk
Vale · Brumadinho
The $100 Billion Illusion of Control
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.
Risk Series · 54 sources →
Jurisdictions where the bench has worked are shown on the coverage map →