For those who are wondering about this topic let me tell you what I know now after a lengthy talk with INGEMMET staff this afternoon. First of all, I can confirm that Macusani Yellowcake presented an "Appeal for Review" ("Recurso de Revision", in spanish) before INGEMMET on March 14th, that is, before this information was disclosed by Otto. So it seems the Company was indeed making all the required steps to asure our mining claims remain in good standing, which dissipates all my fears about a possible "early" consent.
According to what INGEMMET's employees told me now that the expiration resolution has been appealed by Macusani Yellowcake, the file has been moved from "Caducity" to "Validity right" ("Direccion de derecho de vigencia" in spanish), as you can confirm searching for any of the 32 "expired" mining claims on SIDEMCAT (
https://www.ingemmet.gob.pe/sidemcat) and looking at the "Ubicacion" (Location) column; currently INGEMMET's legal team is preparing everything to "raise" the file to the Mining Council (ascribed to the MINEM, Ministry of Energy and Mines) for it to deliberate and make a decision.
The whole process can be describen by the following "steps" and times:
1. INGEMMET's legal team prepares its report and "issue" a Presidential Resolution raising the file to the Mining Council. This could take a month.
The resolution above mentioned will be published on SIDEMCAT. This could take a month after the resolution is issued, but the "Ubicacion" column will be updated immediately, changing from "Direccion de derecho de vigencia" to "Consejo de Mineria" (Mining Council) because this would indeed be the new location of the file.
2. Mining council receives the file and deliberate, listening to the two parties in several sessions and applying a very wide set of legal base to take a final decision. This could take 6 to 12 months.
3. If Mining Council revokes INGEMMET's Resolution then PLU retains all of the 32 "expired" mining claims and we are in the best of all worlds.
4. If Mining Council ratifies INGEMMET's resolution then the Company has 3 months to appeal before the Judiciary. I'm not sure how many instances are there, but if the Company were to lose at all instances (which could take years) then I guess INGEMMET's Resolution would be definitelly ratified and sent to the Public Mining Registry. Even then PLU would be on its right to appeal before the ICSID (International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) were it could win as was the case with Santa Ana (Bear Creek), but I prefer not thinking much about this scenario.
When INGEMMET's staff realized I was talking about Macusani Yellowcake's claims they said "Oh! That's a very unique case! This topic has had a special treatment and has even been handled in direct coordination with the Ministry of Energy and Mines. Normally INGEMMET's resolution are ratified by the Mining Council, but this case is very special, we don't know much details".
What do I think will happen? Well, as was said before, Macusani Yellowcake has sound arguments given that INGEMMET acknowledged reception of the 14 payment vouchers which covered all of its mining claims. Moreover, since October (what a coincidence!) PLU have invested millions in Ocacasa 4; I think this will be considered by the jury because they are allowed to use a broad spectrum of legal dispositives to make their decision.
In summary, since Alex Holmes took office on August last year, I think he and his team have been developing an strategy to solve this issue; take for example what Alex said in the last PR:
"The Company regularly confirms concessions are in good standing via (...) title opinions provided by independent legal advisors as a normal course of business". That is, the decision to keep drilling to the north into Ocacasa 4 now seems obvious from this perspective, and in fact it could have been an idea from the lawyers themselves!
I hear some investors (or bashers, I'm not sure lol) saying "If they are not capable of making a simple payment, how would they construct a mine?". Well, I think this is a very unfair statement. Since Alex took office the company has evolved and I'd dare to say its now a very different and more professional one. In fact, he inherited this issue from the previous management, so instead of blaming him we should reward him if he manages to solve it.
Other investors say "they will have to pay because in Peru money can buy everything". Paraphrasing another fellow poster, I'd say there's a "shred" of truth on this. That is, even when you have sound legal arguments sometimes in Peru judges and juries don't rule in your favor for free. I don't want to go far about this, but I know very honest and correct people who have at some point given some kind of "incentive" to judges/juries in order to get a favoruable rule.
The good news is that when PLU says "all mining claims are in good standing" it's saying something that it will be capable of repeating (without lying) for many years (forever imo), because mining claims will be valid until the Judiciary ratifies INGEMMET's resolution, if that ever happens. Personally, I think this file will never reach the Judiciary because it will be solved favorably by the Mining Council.