Wood Mackenzie LME Forum 2026

Patrick Barnes

Vice President, Head of Metals & Mining Consulting

Wood Mackenzie

Patrick is a practiced consultant with over 10 years of experience helping mining companies, financial institutions and governments to foster development of stable and equitable mining sectors. As director of our metals and mining consulting team, Patrick leads our consulting engagements on topics related to copper, other base metals, precious metals, steel, coal and infrastructure. He has also focused extensively on public policy development and investment attraction in projects with government clients in Latin America, North America and the Middle East. Patrick joined Wood Mackenzie in 2014 as principal in the metals and mining consulting team. Over his tenure, he has worked with such clients as major and junior mining companies, private equity firms, banks and other financial institutions, steel producers, infrastructure operators and investors, governments, and others. Patrick began his mining sector career advising senior management of Kennecott Utah Copper on investment decisions at the Bingham Canyon mine. After pursuing an MBA and helping to launch a healthcare technology startup, Patrick returned to mining and joined Rio Tinto's Copper headquarters as part of its global business analysis and strategy team based in Salt Lake City, where he led projects and analyses in strategy and valuation in Mongolia, Australia, North America and Europe.

Peter Schmitz

Director, Global Copper Markets Research

Wood Mackenzie

Peter leads our copper markets, helping clients in their decision making in an exciting and evolving sector. The team delivers critical insights into a commodity that underpins modern and electrified life as we know it, based on data and bespoke in-house analysis. Peter joins from a boutique consultancy providing macro and commodity insights to the resources industry. Topics covered included implications of climate change, geopolitical and trade concerns and the energy transition, across various commodities. He has experience from mine site to boardroom, having headed macro and commodity research at Anglo American, and worked at Norilsk Nickel International and BHP.

Lindsay Grant

Vice President, Head of M&M Markets Research

Wood Mackenzie

Lindsay is the Head of our Metals & Mining Markets Research team. She contributes to the strategic direction of the M&M business and leads a global team that delivers market research across our suite of mined commodities. Lindsay has also previously led the Metals & Mining Assets Research team, which produces detailed analysis across 16 commodities covering more than 4,000 mines, smelters, refineries and steel mills globally. Lindsay has over 15 years of experience analysing Energy and Natural Resources. She joined Wood Mackenzie in 2008 as an analyst covering UK upstream oil and gas research. Since then she has held a variety of leadership roles within the research business where she has led teams through geographical expansion, team restructuring and the development and launch of new products and processes, all while keeping focus on delivering our industry-leading research. She is a passionate advocate for inclusion, diversity and belonging and has led the WoodMac Women's Network for EMEA.

Jonathan Leng

Principal Analyst, Zinc Markets

Wood Mackenzie

With more than 20 years of experience in the metals and mining industries, Jonathan brings an in-depth perspective to his analysis of zinc markets. Jonathan is a principal analyst focused on zinc mine and smelter supply, as well as concentrate analysis. Though he currently specialises in zinc market analysis, he has also spent significant time in base metal, ferroalloy and gold research. Jonathan joined Wood Mackenzie in 2006 as manager of the zinc, lead and gold mine cost research teams. While in this position, he led Wood Mackenzie’s research agenda and subsequent analysis of trends and developments in zinc, lead and gold markets. Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, Jonathan worked as a geologist for Croesus Gold in Australia and metals researcher at CRU International. Jonathan also worked in construction cost management at Davis Langdon.

Valentina Kretzschmar

Vice President Consulting, Climate Risk and Strategy

Wood Mackenzie

Dr Valentina Kretzschmar has over 25 years of experience in the energy sector. She is a senior expert, with a focus on corporate energy transition strategies and climate reporting. She joined Wood Mackenzie’s Consulting team in June 2023 from Capricorn Energy, where she served as Energy Transition Director, responsible for the company’s climate change and energy transition strategy and reporting. Before Capricorn, Valentina spent 18 years at Wood Mackenzie across Corporate, Upstream Russia and Caspian and Coal Research teams. As Vice President of Corporate Research, she led the development of Corporate New Energy Research. She is an Advisory Board Member at CausewayGT – a geothermal company. She also held a non-executive director role on the board of NHST Global Media (Norway).

Natalie Biggs

Global Head, Base Metals Markets

Wood Mackenzie

Natalie is the global head of Wood Mackenzie’s base metals markets research for the Metals and Mining group. She has 20 years of experience in the mining industry; authoring reports, forecasting markets and model development, and financial valuation of individual mining assets. Natalie joined Wood Mackenzie in 2007 and initially helped to develop US coal market forecasts. Her work quickly expanded to international markets and eventually led to managing our global coal products. In 2023, she expanded her role into covering base metals, working with the team covering aluminium, copper, and zinc. She has played an integral role in the evolution of the Wood Mackenzie’s Metals and Mining products, providing product enhancements and driving integration across market sectors. Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, Natalie worked in US-based mining research and consulting, gaining experience with linear programming models for forecasting commodity prices, supply and demand.

Oliver Heathman

Head of Metals Assets, Metals & Mining Research​

Wood Mackenzie

Oliver has over 15 years of experience in the metals & mining sector across research, consulting and leadership. Over his career, he has covered a broad suite of metals including battery raw materials, precious metals and steel alloys. Oliver’s role at Woodmac sees him lead the teams covering our base metal, precious metal and battery raw material asset level research across mine costs and emissions benchmarking. He joined Wood Mackenzie in 2021 following the takeover of Roskill, where he established the company’s sustainability & cost analysis division. In his time at Roskill, he developed several first of their kind products including cost services across lithium, nickel sulphate and vanadium, and Sustainability Monitors covering lithium, cobalt and nickel sulphate. Before joining Roskill, Oliver was a founding member and the Head of mining research at metals focus, developing the company’s mine cost and supply-side market forecasting research of gold, silver and PGMs.

Suzanne Shaw

Head of Energy Transition & Battery Raw Materials

Wood Mackenzie

Julian Kettle

Senior Vice President, Vice Chair Metals and Mining

Wood Mackenzie

Julian brings 30 years of experience in the analysis of metals and mining to his current role as Senior Vice President, Vice Chair Metals and Mining, where he is responsible for senior stakeholder engagement and relationships. He is a recognised authority on the aluminium industry across the value chain from bauxite mining through to end-use analysis. His in-depth understanding of the key factors influencing the industry and issues that stakeholders face is of critical importance in his work providing strategic advice to clients. Since joining Wood Mackenzie, he has carried out the role of Manager – Metal Market Services, Global Head of Metals Research, and Global Head of Metals and Mining Research. Julian travels extensively and regularly presents to senior industry and financial community stakeholders on our analysis across the value chain of the metals and mining space, covering aluminium, copper, lead, nickel, zinc, iron ore, steel and coal. He also supports consulting assignments and specialises in market environment assessment, expert witness, raw materials sourcing, contract pricing, portfolio optimisation and strategic advisory relating to brownfield and greenfield investments in the metals and mining space. Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, Julian worked in British Aerospace Commercial Aircraft Division, where he was a development engineer responsible for the development and evaluation of advanced materials and processes for aerospace applications.