The federal government articulates, together with the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development) and representatives of the mineral sector, the structuring of a guarantee fund with the aim of reducing one of the main obstacles to the advancement of critical mineral projects in Brazil: the difficulty in accessing long-term financing due to lack of guarantees.
In practice, many mining companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, face obstacles in raising funds because they do not yet have consolidated assets, recurring cash flow or sufficient operational history to meet the demands of the traditional financial system.
This scenario is especially sensitive in the case of critical mineral projects, which require high investments, long maturation periods and involve geological, technological and market uncertainties.
As a result, the risk perceived by financiers increases, increasing the cost of credit or making access to resources unfeasible.
In Brazil, the difficulty in accessing financing for the debt portion of projects means that many companies resort to financing from foreign governments, generally linked to offtake contracts, which guarantee the future sale of the mineral.
Although these agreements make investments viable in the short term, they can limit the country’s ability to internalize the most sophisticated steps in the chain and add greater value to production.
The proposal under discussion envisages the creation of a guarantee fund that would act as a risk mitigation mechanism, offering complementary guarantees in credit operations and reducing the exposure of banks and investors.
With this, projects could access financing under conditions more compatible with the mining cycle, with lower interest rates and longer terms.
Technicians involved in the negotiations believe that this instrument is essential to align financing with .
Initially, the fund should be targeted at so-called junior companies, small and medium-sized companies focused on the exploration and development stages of projects, which have not yet reached the commercial production phase.
These companies concentrate a large part of the bets on rare earths in Brazil and are responsible for advancing promising projects, but they face the greatest difficulties in accessing credit precisely because they do not generate revenue and depend on venture capital or external investors.
BNDES’ assessment is that the creation of a guarantee fund can help to unblock this structural bottleneck, expanding access to credit and creating conditions for Brazil to move beyond mineral extraction, also consolidating the country as a hub for the processing and industrialization of critical minerals.
Bank technicians point out that countries such as Australia and the United States already adopt structured public guarantee policies and targeted financing for this type of project, which reinforces the need for Brazil to develop similar instruments to compete on the global stage.
