Geopolitical tensions and the scramble to secure critical resources have made Latin America more relevant on the global stage. From mining to oil extraction, investors are forming alliances to exploit the region’s natural resources and exploring markets that were previously no-go terrain. This pre-conference session will explore:

• Tools that can help investors and lenders overcome doubts about a country’s creditworthiness, such as the RIGI investment promotion framework in Argentina
• The role of government-to-government financing in frontier markets like Venezuela 
• Structuring deals to accommodate different tiers of investors and national interests

Critical-minerals security has become a significant industrial-policy issue. This session widens the lens from US EXIM’s Project Vault to show how agencies globally are deploying frameworks such as stockpiling, upstream mining risk support, inventory financing and recycling to reduce supply-chain dependence and support technology and transition-related demand. This panel will delve into:

• ECAs taking mining and refining risk - reopening upstream assets and building domestic refining to break the processing monopoly
• How Vault offtake de-risks LatAm lithium and copper project finance, and where traders (Hartree, Traxys, Mercuria) intermediate
• Where ECAs, DFIs and private capital sit in the capital stack, and what “credible long-term offtake” means for bankability