La India Gold Loan Fully Drawn as December Production Nears

La India Gold, the Nicaraguan subsidiary of AIM-listed Metals Exploration plc (MTL), has fully drawn a US$27 million equipment loan from Banco de America Central, pulling the final US$6.8 million tranche on 23 September 2026, six days before the news reached the market.

The completion removes a specific financing execution risk from a gold project that has been running ahead of its internal construction schedule, with first gold targeted for December 2026. Post-drawdown, the company reported a cash position of £25.8 million (approximately US$34.5 million).

What follows below is a clear account of three things: what the loan completion means for the construction timeline, how the project is funded from here, and what investors watching the path to production should weigh against the optimism in the 28 September update.

Final drawdown closes out the US$27 million Banco de America Central facility

The borrowing entity is La India Gold, a wholly owned subsidiary of Metals Exploration. The lender is Banco de America Central, a local Nicaraguan bank, and the facility is secured against La India’s Caterpillar mining fleet, backed by a corporate guarantee from the parent company.

The drawdown came in two tranches. An initial US$20.2 million was drawn in August 2026, followed by the final US$6.8 million on 23 September 2026. The facility is now fully drawn.

Here are the key terms of the facility:

• Lender: Banco de America Central (local Nicaraguan bank)
• Amount: US$27.0 million (approximately £20.39 million)
• Security: Caterpillar mining fleet plus corporate guarantee from Metals Exploration plc
• Interest rate: Variable, initially 7% per annum, with a floor of 6.85% per annum
• Maturity: 17 August 2031, a five-year term

Repayment carries a 12-month grace period on principal, after which the loan is settled through 48 equal monthly instalments covering both principal and interest.

There is a read here that company disclosures alone do not spell out. A local Nicaraguan bank extending a five-year, US$27 million secured facility to a foreign-listed junior, on the strength of a Caterpillar fleet and a parent guarantee, is a form of in-country institutional endorsement. It signals credit-level confidence in the asset from a party with local knowledge, and that is worth more to the investment case than a percentage completion figure.

The spot gold environment above US$4,300 per ounce provides a supportive backdrop for La India’s economics, but junior gold miner financing conditions remain structurally more complex than commodity prices alone suggest, with lender risk frameworks and project-specific factors shaping outcomes independently of the gold price.

Post-drawdown cash position £25.8 million (approximately US$34.5 million), as reported in the 28 September 2026 RNS.

Construction at the La India process plant passes the halfway mark ahead of schedule

Construction at the La India process plant is now more than 50% complete as of late September 2026, and running ahead of plan in several areas.

That momentum is not new. Back in March 2026, the company reported construction at 40% complete against an internal plan of 35%. Six months on, the above-schedule position has held.

The 28 September RNS moved workstream by workstream, and the specifics matter more than the headline number:

• Conveyor systems: fully installed within the process plant
• Grinding building: structural steel framework complete
• Oxygen plant: installation finished
• SAG mill: head ends, trunnions, and middle shell lifted into final position
• Ball mill: girth gear installation preparation underway
• CIL (carbon-in-leach) tanks: work ongoing
• Tailings storage facility: lining work ongoing

The SAG (semi-autogenous grinding) mill and ball mill milestones are the ones to watch. Grinding circuit commissioning is typically the longest-lead critical path item in a new gold process plant, and having these components in position suggests the December timeline is achievable rather than aspirational.

What the schedule means for the December 2026 target

CEO Darren Bowden has publicly characterised the structural, mechanical, piping, electrical, and instrumentation (SMPEI) works as accelerating, and consistent with the December 2026 first-gold target, which has been reaffirmed in every major disclosure across 2025 and 2026.

Read the schedule position honestly. Construction ahead of plan is a genuine positive, but the commissioning phase carries its own execution risk that a percentage figure cannot capture. Equipment installed is not equipment proven under load.

There is also a gap worth holding: formal production guidance has not been issued, and is not expected until production commences. Investors are pricing a December outcome without visibility on ramp-up curves, and that should factor into any timeline assessment.

How La India is funded from here: three layers, one still untouched

La India’s funding is best understood as deliberate architecture rather than a set of separate decisions. Three layers sit behind the US$171 million total project budget, itself a 4% increase from the prior figure, attributed to higher power infrastructure costs.

The undrawn US$30 million gold pre-pay facility is the most telling line in the entire picture. It sits available but untouched as of 28 September 2026, which tells you the company believes existing resources are enough to reach first gold. The facility exists as contingency, not planned capital.

That framing changes how the 4% budget increase should read. With an undrawn facility of this size and cash flows coming from Runruno, the cost revision looks manageable rather than alarming, provided Runruno keeps performing.

Capital quality in junior mining matters as much as capital availability, and the architecture of La India’s three-layer funding stack, with Runruno cash flows as primary source and a pre-pay facility held in reserve rather than deployed, reflects a discipline that is less common in the current high-gold-price environment than it might appear.

And that proviso is the concentration risk. La India’s capex leans heavily on Runruno cash flows, so any operational disruption at the Philippines mine would compress the primary funding channel at the worst possible moment, mid-construction.

Gold price environment Spot gold traded in the US$4,300-4,450 per ounce range through September 2026, according to Reuters reporting, a supportive backdrop for new producer economics.

Nicaragua operating environment: what the concession and community picture adds to the investment case

Construction optimism means little without jurisdictional footing, and here the picture has genuinely improved over the past 18 months. Three developments have accumulated since 2025, each reducing a distinct category of risk.

• Artisanal miners agreement (August 2025): a formal agreement with miners operating in and around the La India district, which reduces social-licence risk.
• New exploration concessions (early 2026): four highly prospective concessions adjacent to La India, signalling continued regulatory support and expanding longer-term resource potential.
• 25-year concession renewal (effective January 2027): operational tenure security through the production ramp-up and well beyond.

The 25-year renewal is the most structurally significant of the three. It removes tenure uncertainty for the entire production life of the project and any subsequent resource extension, giving investors a stable legal framework to price against rather than a rolling permitting question.

None of this eliminates the underlying exposure. Nicaragua’s regulatory environment remains closely managed, and operating alongside artisanal miners requires ongoing investment in community relations.

The jurisdictional backdrop is not without its own external pressures: US sanctions on Nicaragua’s gold sector have added a layer of geopolitical complexity that any investor in Nicaraguan mining assets should weigh alongside the operational progress at La India.

For UK investors weighing an AIM-listed company with assets concentrated in one country, the combination of a long-term renewal, community agreements, and new grants represents a materially better risk profile than the picture 18 months ago. Single-jurisdiction exposure remains a structural feature of the investment, not a resolved one.

Market context Metals Exploration closed at 16.50 GBX on 28 September 2026, with a market capitalisation of approximately £514 million (around US$685 million) across 3.06 billion shares outstanding.

What changes at La India from here, and what the risks still require watching

The 28 September update materially shifts the investment picture. Financing execution risk is now closed, construction is ahead of schedule, the regulatory environment has strengthened, and the cash position is solid at £25.8 million with a US$30 million facility still in reserve.

The practical question changes with it. It is no longer “will they complete the financing?” That is answered. It becomes “what happens in commissioning?”, a harder and less visible risk to track without formal guidance in place.

Pricing execution risk in junior gold developers at the commissioning stage is considerably harder than tracking construction milestones, because the variables shift from physical completion percentages to operating performance metrics that only emerge under production conditions.

Three variables will determine the next 90 days:

• Commissioning execution: whether the grinding circuit and other installed equipment perform once fully assembled and tested under load.
• Runruno performance: continued operational output at the Philippines mine, which remains the primary funding source for La India capex.
• Infrastructure costs: any further movement in power-related costs, the category that drove the 4% budget increase to US$171 million.

The absence of formal production guidance is not a red flag; it is standard practice at this stage. FY2027 guidance is expected only once production commences. But it does mean a December 2026 outcome is being priced without visibility on ramp-up curves or cost-per-ounce figures, and that gap should be held consciously rather than assumed away.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Financial projections and forward-looking statements are speculative and subject to change based on market conditions, company performance, and various risk factors.