Forestry & Water Permits Now Set Nicaraguan Build Dates

• Underground development in Latin America requires several approvals issued separately by different authorities, so a project can hold its main permits and still be unable to commit to construction.
• Forest-management approval for the tailings storage and processing plant facilities at Porvenir in Nicaragua remains outstanding, with issuance expected before the end of 2026.
• An industrial water-use application at the same project would, if granted, take the form of a concession title issued by the National Water Authority (ANA).
• Detailed engineering, a targeted drilling campaign, and early works in already-permitted areas are all proceeding while those approvals remain open.
• The construction decision is targeted for early 2027 and is sequenced to follow the full permitting process.

A construction decision in Latin America is dated by whichever authorization has not yet been issued. Engineering, drilling, and site preparation can all be completed while that authorization is pending, which shifts the binding constraint from the technical team to the regulator.

Porvenir, an underground polymetallic project in northeastern Nicaragua, is a current worked example of that sequencing. Its owner has entered detailed engineering, begun drilling, and prepared early works, while two approvals it does not yet hold stand between the project and a build.

Industry Context

Approvals for an underground mine arrive as a set of separate instruments, and the number already granted says little about whether construction can begin. One certification covers the environmental acceptability of a processing plant and its tailings storage. A second, narrower authorization governs forest management on the specific ground those facilities will occupy. A third addresses water, granting the right to draw industrial volumes for a mine and a plant, which in Nicaragua takes the form of a concession title rather than a permit.

Each instrument brings its own applicant obligations. A water application is supported by a hydrological study. A forestry approval is attached to defined facilities and involves regional environmental authorities alongside the municipal administration. Because the instruments are independent of one another, a company can accurately report that its main permits have been received while also stating that final permits are still expected.

The scope of the outstanding instrument decides how much it holds up. An unresolved forestry authorization over the footprint of a tailings facility affects the entire build. A pending exploration permit does not.

Emerging Practices & Industry Progress

Developers facing that sequence have adopted a parallel working model, completing everything the regulator does not control while the outstanding approval is pending. Independent review comes first. At Porvenir, a consortium of engineering firms including BBA Inc., NCL Ingenieria y Construcción, Mining Plus and Tanka Engineering conducted a comprehensive gap analysis of the project's technical parameters, and that review confirmed the project's readiness. Detailed engineering has since commenced on the main components.

Drilling then addresses the part of the plan with the least tolerance for error. The campaign underway at Porvenir is designed to reduce geological uncertainty, de-risk the first three years of the underground mine plan, and support the metallurgical test work being conducted as part of the detailed engineering for the processing plant. Confidence in the opening production profile and in the processing flow sheet is built before capital is committed, not after.

Site work follows the same logic inside a narrower boundary. Early works are being prepared only in areas where the required permits have been obtained, covering critical-path infrastructure such as site accesses, preliminary earthworks, and surface platforms. The purpose is to mobilize quickly, so that if the decision comes, the ground has already been opened.

Remaining Challenges

Parallel working moves the start date, not the approval date. Those workstreams can all be completed, but the project still cannot commit while the forestry and water instruments remain unissued, and the company expects both before the end of 2026. The assumptions behind that expectation include receipt of required permits and approvals on the anticipated timeline, and the absence of material adverse changes in operating and political conditions in Nicaragua.

A second limit applies at the district level. Porvenir is a stand-alone underground operation within an emerging polymetallic district that also includes the Guillermina, Leticia, and San Antonio deposits. Those three deposits are at an earlier stage of evaluation. Each hosts a mineral resource estimate; none has an estimated mineral reserve, and there is no certainty that any of them will advance to a stage that could contribute to an extension of the Porvenir mine life.

The approvals now pending cover only the stand-alone mine, not the surrounding district. The surrounding deposits would need their own evaluation and, in time, their own authorizations before contributing anything to it.

Porvenir & Its Two Outstanding Approvals

Mineros (TSX: MSA | BVC: MINEROS | OTCQX: MNSAF) owns Porvenir outright, within the Hemco Property in northeastern Nicaragua, about 230 kilometers (km) northeast of Managua. The project entered detailed engineering following an independent engineering review of the pre-feasibility study updated in March 2026, and the construction decision is targeted for early 2027. The company is sequencing its technical and engineering work so that it is positioned to finalize that decision once permitting is fully approved.

Two approvals remain outstanding. On July 22, 2026, the company hosted a site visit by representatives of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA), the Secretariat of Natural Resources and the Environment (SERENA) and the Environmental Commission for Natural Resources and the Environment (CARENA), both of the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, and the municipal mayor's office, as part of the work necessary to obtain approvals for forest management for the tailings storage and processing plant facilities. A hydrological study is separately being developed to support an application for industrial water use at the mine and processing plant, which, if granted, would be issued as a concession title by the National Water Authority (ANA).

Speaking in May 2026, with the environmental approvals for the plant and tailings facility already granted, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mineros, Daniel Henao, describes a timetable the company argued forward rather than waiting out:

"In terms of timing, we were initially indicating to the market that this permit that we just got, we will get it probably by the end of the year. We've been working with the authorities explaining why it makes sense to fast-track these sort of projects for the country, and we achieved that."

In the same interview, Henao put the permitting and the engineering side by side:

"We're waiting for some final permits. In parallel, we're doing a lot of detail engineering work."

Average annual production at Porvenir is estimated at 72,300 gold-equivalent ounces over a mine life of more than 9 years. After-tax net present value at a 5% discount rate (NPV5%) is US$460 million, with an after-tax internal rate of return of 37.9%, a payback period of 2.0 years, an all-in sustaining cost of US$1,295 per gold-equivalent ounce and initial capital of US$206.8 million, on base case prices of US$3,150 per ounce for gold, US$45.00 per ounce for silver, US$1.22 per pound for zinc and US$4.72 per pound for copper. Those figures describe an operation whose start still depends on two authorizations that have not been issued.

Permitting Across Three Jurisdictions

One operator is working three regulatory clocks at once, and the stage each project has reached is set by the instrument it awaits, not by its geology. In Nicaragua, it holds about 458,932 hectares (ha) of tenements and applications, and its ore supply there already depends on a structure agreed with public authorities: 83% of ore in the first half of 2026 came from the Bonanza Mining Partners, the miners working under a model created in 2013 that now counts more than 5,600 partners.

The concession model puts an operator alongside miners already working the ground, which Henao treats as an advantage:

"These are miners that have the right to operate in our concessions. And instead of that being a problem, which is the normal situation that you would see in a lot of jurisdictions, we recognize that as a great opportunity."

Chile sits at an earlier point in the same kind of sequence. At the La Pepa Project in the Atacama Region, a sectorial permit application has been submitted, environmental characterization studies are underway, and an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is in preparation; US$4.1 million has been allocated to permitting and environmental studies in 2026. A 7,000-meter drilling program was set to commence in the third quarter of 2026 with permits in process, and a resource update is planned for 2027.

Colombia introduces a different kind of regulatory exposure. At the Cajamarca exploration project in Tolima, contingent consideration of up to US$60 million is tied to authorized tonnage under a regulatory work plan and to environmental license milestones. The delineation of the Los Nevados Páramo under Resolution 1987 of 2016 remains subject to legal proceedings and may affect portions of the historical resource estimate prepared there by AngloGold Ashanti in December 2024, which the current owner has not verified as a current mineral resource. Litigation over a boundary is a slower, less predictable gate than the application queue.

Industry Outlook

Across the region, the instruments that decide build dates are becoming more specific and more separable. Facility-level forestry approvals and water concession titles are tied to specific footprints and volumes, so they can be granted or withheld independently of a project's broader environmental standing.

The consequence for schedule credibility is that the number of approvals a developer holds explains less than which one it still awaits. A company reporting that main permits have been received may be weeks from a decision or a year from it, depending on the remaining instrument. Reading a timetable, therefore, means reading the specific authorization, its issuing body, and the study or application still supporting it.

That reading will grow more demanding as more Latin American projects reach the decision threshold with engineering finished and ground prepared. Where technical readiness is no longer the constraint, the regulator's calendar becomes the schedule, and developers who publish which instrument they await, and from whom, are the ones whose timetables can be tested.

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