Financializing the subsoil: Technical disclosure, extractive governance, and asymmetrical accountability in an emerging copper project in the Ecuadorian Amazon

This article examines how technical disclosure frameworks contribute to the financialization of mineral resources and shape forms of information disclosure within contemporary extractive governance. Focusing on the Warintza copper project in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the study analyzes how geological information, investor-oriented valuation, environmental considerations, and community relations are structured within corporate disclosure practices. The research is based on qualitative documentary analysis of 18 publicly available disclosure documents produced between 2015 and 2024, including a NI 43–101 technical report, investor presentations, corporate reports, and sustainability-related documents. NI 43–101, a Canadian securities regulation designed to inform investors, structures highly detailed technical disclosures while offering only limited treatment of social and environmental dimensions. The findings show that disclosure systems prioritize geological and investor-oriented information through highly structured quantitative frameworks. Resource classification, drilling results, and corporate narratives of project potential translate geological uncertainty into investor expectations and position the deposit within global investment networks. By contrast, environmental and social dynamics are primarily represented through narrative descriptions that remain only partially integrated into investor evaluation. Rather than framing this as a problem of asymmetrical accountability, the article conceptualizes these dynamics as a condition of asymmetrical information disclosure across distinct governance domains. Different regulatory systems produce differentiated informational outputs, structuring what is disclosed, to whom, and with what level of precision. The findings also indicate that the limited disclosure of social conflict and Indigenous opposition may constitute a material gap in the representation of project-related risks within investor-oriented disclosure systems. By examining disclosure practices in an emerging mining region, the study contributes to debates on extractive governance, transparency regimes, and the financialization of natural resources.