Earth sciences for any industry. Principally, for mining.

Brato investigates the ground and reports what is actually there. Most of our work is mineral resource estimation and the studies a mining project needs to stand up. The same investigation answers the question when the client is building a road, licensing a site, or proving a slope is safe.

Fifteen commodities sit on both the United States critical minerals list and Colombia's strategic minerals list. Copper leads them, and Colombia holds one of the least-drilled porphyry and polymetallic belts in the Andes.

The same investigation answers a mine plan, a road cut, a transmission line and an environmental licence. What changes is the question, not the ground.

Critical minerals, and where Colombia actually sits

In November 2025 the United States expanded its List of Critical Minerals from 50 commodities to 60, adding boron, copper, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon, silver and uranium.

Colombia keeps its own list of strategic minerals, defined by the national mining authority: copper, nickel, zinc, platinum group metals, iron, manganese, metallurgical coal, phosphates, magnesium, bauxite and aluminium minerals, gold, emeralds, construction materials, silica sands, limestone, gypsum and chromium.

Where the two lists overlap is where the work is. Fifteen commodities sit on both, and Colombia is barely explored for most of them.

Gold is absent from the US list, and its absence is worth explaining. Gold is not supply-constrained the way a critical mineral is, and it does not need to be: it is the commodity that actually funds mining in Colombia. It sits on Colombia's strategic minerals list, it carries most small and medium-scale operations, and it is where formalisation, traceability and anti-money-laundering compliance get decided in practice rather than in policy documents. It is also where our field record in vein systems sits. Gold-silver veins in the Colombian Andes carry silver, lead and zinc, three commodities that are on the US list, and the structural work that defines one defines the others.

Copper and polymetallic systems are where we are building. We say plainly what we have estimated and what we have not — a consultancy that claims all sixty is claiming none of them.

aluminum antimony arsenic barite beryllium bismuth boron cerium cesium chromium cobalt copper dysprosium erbium europium fluorspar gadolinium gallium germanium graphite hafnium holmium indium iridium lanthanum lead lithium lutetium magnesium manganese metallurgical coal neodymium nickel niobium palladium phosphate platinum potash praseodymium rhenium rhodium rubidium ruthenium samarium scandium silicon silver tantalum tellurium terbium thulium tin titanium tungsten uranium vanadium ytterbium yttrium zinc zirconium

Our focus: copper and polymetallic systems On Colombia's strategic minerals list On the US list, not on Colombia's

Copper sits on both lists. Colombia sits on the same Andean belt as Chile and Peru, and has a fraction of the drilling.

Reading the Colombian file

For explorers entering Colombia

Target generation from the national cadastre, geological survey datasets and decades of filed technical work
Title status, overlaps, restricted areas and what an application will realistically take
Technical review of existing resource statements on assets offered to you
Field verification, sampling and survey once a target is worth the trip

Copper and polymetallic targets

Where we are building the practice

Structural controls on vein and replacement systems, mapped in the field and carried into the model
Target generation from the national cadastre, geological survey coverage and legacy drilling
Sampling design and QA/QC built for multi-element assay from the first campaign
Our reported estimation work to date is in bulk and vein deposits, not porphyry. We say so, and we partner where the deposit type demands it.

Mining first, and everything the same ground supports

Mining is where the work is deepest and where the standards are hardest. We work at every scale, from a two-person traditional operation applying for a title to a corporate project financing a plant.

The disciplines a mine requires — mapping, drilling, modelling, groundwater, rock mechanics, terrain — are the same ones a road cut, a well pad, a transmission tower or an environmental licence requires. We take that work when the ground is the question.

We provide services in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Small and medium operators are not a lesser version of a mine. They are most of the sector, and almost nobody serves them properly.

Mining

Large, medium and small scale. Copper and polymetallics, gold, emerald, coal, industrial minerals and aggregate. Exploration through to filings before the mining authority.

Oil and gas

Surface geology, geomorphology, hydrogeology and geotechnics for well pads, rights of way and facility siting.

Power and transmission

Ground conditions along transmission corridors and at generation sites: foundations, slopes, groundwater and geological hazard.

Construction and roads

Cut and fill design inputs, slope stability, material sources, and characterisation of quarries and borrow areas.

Environment and licensing

Abiotic baseline studies for environmental licence applications, and the geological, hydrological and geotechnical chapters that support them.

Risk management

Landslide, subsidence and slope hazard assessment for operators, municipalities and asset owners, with monitoring recommendations.

What we actually do

These are disciplines, not service packages. Most projects need three or four of them, and the value is in making them agree with each other rather than arrive as separate reports.

One field campaign, one database, one set of assumptions. Every deliverable traces back to it.

Discipline	Scope
Topography and survey	Drone survey with RTK, orthophoto, LiDAR scanning at surface and underground, classified point clouds, digital terrain models, volume calculation, boundary and title delimitation.
Drilling and sampling	Programme design and supervision, diamond core and RC logging, sample preparation protocols, chain of custody.
Geological modelling	Structural and stratigraphic interpretation, seam and vein correlation, 3D models in Vulcan and Surpac, underground workings inventory by LiDAR scan.
Resource and reserve estimation	Database validation, QA/QC of sampling, geostatistics, block modelling, classification and reporting under the ECRR.
Hydrology and hydrogeology	Surface water characterisation, groundwater systems, inflow assessment, surface–subsurface interaction, water management inputs.
Geomorphology	Landform mapping, process characterisation, terrain units for baseline studies and hazard assessment.
Geotechnics and rock mechanics	Rock mass characterisation, slope and pit stability, underground ground support, subsidence, foundation conditions, ventilation planning.
Environmental baseline	Abiotic component studies for environmental licensing, and the technical chapters supporting applications and modifications.
Social management	Stakeholder mapping and the social component of technical filings, alongside communities that host the work.

Programmes we run, and the specialists who execute them

A consultancy is not paid for owning a drill rig. It is paid for specifying the right programme, choosing a contractor who can deliver it, supervising the work, and validating the data before it enters a model that someone will make a decision on.

We design, procure, supervise and audit these programmes. Execution is carried out by specialist providers we have worked with and can name before you sign anything.

Named in the proposal, not discovered in the invoice. Who drills your holes and who assays your samples is your decision as much as ours.

Exploration drilling

Diamond core, RC and auger

Programme design, hole placement and depth targets
Collar and downhole survey control
Core handling, logging, photography and storage protocol
Recovery and RQD control on site

Water well drilling

Supply and hydrogeological testing

Siting from hydrogeological interpretation, not from convenience
Well design, screen placement and development
Pumping tests, aquifer parameters and safe yield
Water level monitoring networks

Laboratory analysis

Selection, control and audit

Laboratory selection and qualification for the commodity
Sample preparation protocol and chain of custody
Insertion of certified reference material, blanks and duplicates
Umpire laboratory checks and performance monitoring

Ground geophysics

Survey design and interpretation

Magnetics, induced polarisation and resistivity
Electrical resistivity tomography and seismic refraction
Ground penetrating radar for shallow targets and voids
Integration with the geological model, not delivered as a loose dataset

Airborne surveys

Specification and data QC

Magnetics and radiometrics for regional target generation
Gravimetry for density contrast and structural interpretation
Airborne LiDAR for terrain under vegetation cover
Contractor selection, flight specification and acceptance of the delivered data

LiDAR scanning

Surface and underground

Underground workings and void inventory in active and abandoned mines
Stope and cavity survey where entry is unsafe
Slope and highwall scanning for geotechnical monitoring
Point cloud registration, classification and delivery in the client's system

Where a resource statement is concerned, we keep a wall

Most of the technical work behind a mining project is done by the same people who later vouch for it. That is why so little of it can be used to raise money.

So we separate preparation from independent review. A deposit we prepared is a deposit we will not evaluate for a lender, and every review we issue carries a signed independence declaration naming any prior involvement with the asset, its owner or its operator.

This costs us work. We think it is the only way a technical opinion is worth anything to someone lending against it.

We do not evaluate an asset we prepared, and we do not prepare an asset we have evaluated.

Documented work

Figures below are delivered work, not a capability list. Client names are withheld unless the client has authorised disclosure.

Every estimate is delivered with its input data, its assumptions and its limitations. A number without those three is not an estimate.

geological models built

geomechanical studies

resource and reserve estimation reports

abiotic baseline reports for environmental licensing

years across the mineral chain, from underground operation to government evaluation

How we work

Resource reporting follows the ECRR, Colombia's national standard within the CRIRSCO family, and the mining authority's good practice guides for exploration and estimation. Because the ECRR shares the CRIRSCO definitions and classification framework, the same work carries across to JORC, NI 43-101 and SEC Regulation S-K subpart 1300 without being rebuilt. Estimation is reproducible: raw data, database validation, QA/QC of sampling with certified reference material, blanks and field duplicates, laboratory performance monitoring, variography where the data supports it, block model, and a written statement of every assumption behind the modifying factors.

Modelling in Vulcan and Surpac. Spatial work in ArcGIS Pro and QGIS. Survey with RTK drone and LiDAR scanning, surface and underground, delivered as classified point clouds and terrain models. Reports are peer-reviewed before issue.

Where a report is issued under JORC, NI 43-101 or S-K 1300, Brato prepares and delivers the technical work and the report is signed by a Competent or Qualified Person registered with a recognised professional organisation. We state that on the face of the document rather than leaving it to be discovered.

Brato maintains an anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing programme, a compliance manual and a code of ethics, and screens counterparties before accepting an engagement.

Ask us for a redacted sample report before you engage us. We would rather be judged on one.

Who signs

Reports are signed by the professional who did the work, named, with their registration number and their scope of responsibility stated on the face of the document.

Brato Mineral Resources S.A.S. · NIT 901.544.301-5

Brandon Miguel Torres Pérez

Geological engineer · Founder

Nine years across gold, emerald, coal and industrial minerals. Formerly a technical evaluator at Colombia's National Mining Agency, assessing resource and reserve statements, geological models, hydrogeology and geotechnics. Previously an underground mine operator and coal trader. Geological Engineering, UPTC, graduated second in his cohort. Postgraduate specialisation in mining geology, Universidad de Buenos Aires (in progress). UBC BRIMM and Columbia CCSI executive programmes.

Edison Eduardo Granados

Mining engineer · Partner

Nine years in underground and open-pit operations across gold, copper, coal and aggregate. Zone superintendent and head of operations before moving to consulting, with responsibility for production targets, safety, budgets and cost control. Mine planning, extraction method design and production cycles; reserve calculation and mineral property valuation in the field. Mining Engineering, UPTC.

Projects

Delivered work. Client names are withheld unless the client has authorised disclosure, which is why these are described by commodity, setting and scope rather than by company.

If you want a reference, ask. We will call the client first and then put you in touch.

Metallurgical and thermal coal · Tasco, Boyacá · three adjoining titles · 150 ha

Resource and reserve estimation across three adjoining coal titles

Central Colombia's coal districts are structurally complex and worked by dozens of small operations, which means the seams are known underground long before they are known on paper. The work correlated the productive seams across three separate titles from active underground workings and surface mapping, resolved the structure between them, and carried it into a block model.

Delivered: topographic survey by RTK drone with orthophoto and terrain model, underground workings inventory, structural and stratigraphic interpretation, resource and reserve estimation classified under the ECRR, and the mineral resources component of the works and works programme filed with the national mining authority.

Vein-hosted gold · Norosí, Sur de Bolívar · two Special Reserve Areas

Technical file for a traditional mining association seeking formal title

Norosí is one of Colombia's oldest gold districts and one of its least documented. The miners there have worked the veins for generations without a title, which leaves them outside the formal market, outside the banking system and exposed to whoever will buy the metal without asking questions.

Delivered: delimitation and survey of two Special Reserve Areas, geological characterisation of the vein systems and their structural controls, inventory of existing workings, and the technical file supporting the association's application through the formalisation process.

We do not publish tonnages or grades. A resource figure belongs to the titleholder, and a public report of it carries a classification, an effective date and the name of the Competent Person behind it. Ask, and with the client's written authorisation we will give you the report itself.

Notes

Short pieces on what is changing in Colombian mining regulation, reporting standards and critical minerals policy, and what it means for the people who have to act on it.

Written to be read by someone deciding whether to spend money, not to be read by an algorithm.

2026

The US critical minerals list grew to 60. Fifteen of them are Colombia's problem now.

In November 2025 the United States finalised a revised List of Critical Minerals, expanding it from 50 commodities to 60. Copper, lead, silver, phosphate, potash, silicon, boron, rhenium, uranium and metallurgical coal were added.

Colombia keeps its own list of strategic minerals. Fifteen commodities appear on both. Copper leads them, and Colombia sits on the same Andean belt as Chile and Peru with a fraction of the drilling.

The gap is not geological. It is that almost none of the technical work done in Colombia ever reaches the people who decide whether to fund a project. Resource statements are prepared to satisfy an authority, approved, and filed. A report nobody can read cannot underwrite anything.

Tell us what you need to know about the ground.

Whether it is how much metal is in a body, whether a cut will hold, where the water goes, or what a licensing authority will ask for — the honest answer starts with a field programme and ends with a report you can hand to someone else.

contact@bratomineral.com WhatsApp +57 311 222 7136 +57 311 222 7136 linkedin.com/in/brandon-miguel-torres-perez