The precedent
The Makuutu heavy rare earths project in eastern Uganda received a stage one large-scale mining licence over a retention licence area, reported as the first such award under the Mining and Minerals Act 2022. The grant established, in practice, what the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines expects from a large-scale applicant: a staged development plan, defined environmental commitments and a resource statement it can test.
Why gold applicants care
Statutes are interpreted through their first files. Gold operators progressing from exploration to production under the same Act inherit that interpretation, including the staged approach that lets a project take a licence over part of a wider tenement rather than waiting for the whole area to be defined.
Caveat
A licence is a permit, not a financing. Ionic-style staged clay-hosted projects and greenstone gold projects have very different capital profiles, and the permitting precedent says nothing about which will be funded.