Collective Mining Completes Access Road for Guayabales Adit, Sets Trap Underground Drilling for Q1-2027

Company also targets new Trap East greenfield discovery underground

Collective Mining Ltd. (Collective Mining) (NASDAQ: CNL) (TSX: CNL) has finished the access road to the portal site for its planned exploration adit at the Guayabales Project in the department of Caldas, Colombia, and is moving directly into portal-platform and box-cut construction, the company said August 18, 2026. With permits already secured, Collective Mining said the adit remains on schedule to begin construction in the fourth quarter of 2026, with underground drilling set to start in the first quarter of 2027 at Trap East, a newly identified extension of the company’s Trap system.

The update follows a progress report Collective Mining issued June 17, 2026, when it said engineering, permitting and site preparation for the adit were advancing and named former Ecopetrol projects executive Josué Romanos as vice president of projects (Finance Colombia reported on that update). The company first disclosed plans for the exploration adit on March 11, 2026. The August update also comes about a week after Collective Mining completed the transfer of its US listing from the NYSE American to the Nasdaq Global Select Market, a move it announced in late July and completed August 11 under the unchanged CNL symbol; its Toronto Stock Exchange listing was not affected.

The completed roadway is a 1.8-kilometer switch-back route built by upgrading an existing path connecting the Pan American Highway to the portal site, the company said, clearing the way for box-cut and portal-platform work to begin immediately.

Under Collective Mining’s current timeline, drilling of the Trap East target is scheduled for the first quarter of 2027. Drilling of the Trap Main System is expected to follow in the second half of 2027, once the adit has advanced enough to allow construction of a cross-cut, with drilling of the Plutus target and the Ramp Zone to follow in 2028. The company said the portal location and access-road alignment sit within the area anticipated for future project infrastructure, close to both the Pan American Highway and existing power lines.

“We are excited to begin drilling the Trap System from underground, as we will be able to rapidly test the system from suitable drilling angles while testing for extensions to the mineralization,” said Ari Sussman, Executive Chairman of Collective Mining. “Following a recent detailed review with our geological team, I am confident that Trap has all the potential to develop into a second large-scale precious-metal system at Guayabales.” Sussman said the Trap system’s proximity to both the adit portal and the company’s proposed future mining infrastructure is a key advantage: “Should our underground drilling confirm the system as we expect, Trap would provide a second independent working front alongside Apollo, enhancing mill feed flexibility in a future mining scenario.” He added that he is not ruling out the possibility of discovering yet another mineralized system as the adit advances toward Apollo, given the amount of mineralization already found across Guayabales through limited surface drilling to date.

Ned Jalil, Chief Executive Officer, said the company remains on track to meet its milestones. “Once established, the adit will fundamentally expand the way we can explore Guayabales,” Jalil said. “Underground access will enable us to drill-test Apollo’s Ramp Zone, the Trap System and the Plutus Target over more than a vertical kilometer from optimal orientations that are not available from surface.”

Collective Mining said it is prioritizing local employment and procurement for the early-works program, with much of the current workforce recruited from communities in Caldas. The company said the work is being carried out under its own health and safety standards as well as Colombia’s applicable regulatory requirements.

Mineralization at Trap outcrops at surface and has been drill-tested along a 1.4-kilometer northwest-southeast corridor, extending as much as 900 meters below surface and remaining open along strike and at depth; the planned adit is positioned to intersect the currently known southeastern end of that corridor. According to Collective Mining’s own project disclosures, Trap sits about 3.5 kilometers northeast of the Apollo system; the company first announced a discovery there through grassroots drilling in September 2022. The company currently has one rig testing for mineralization up to 200 meters further northwest than any prior drilling, with initial results expected in late September.

Previously reported drilling at Trap has returned both broad, continuous mineralized intervals and narrower high-grade vein zones, including:

• 632.25 meters at 1.10 g/t AuEq from 172.65 meters, including 51.50 meters at 2.73 g/t AuEq and 46.35 meters at 2.41 g/t AuEq (TRC-7A)
• 646.00 meters at 0.81 g/t AuEq from 19.50 meters, including 301.50 meters at 1.01 g/t AuEq (TRC-2)
• 174.45 meters at 1.19 g/t AuEq from 485.15 meters, including 40.85 meters at 3.76 g/t AuEq (TRC-11)
• 30.00 meters at 4.96 g/t AuEq from 11.85 meters (TRC-14)
• 200.85 meters at 1.06 g/t AuEq from 4.55 meters, including 40.50 meters at 4.01 g/t AuEq (TRC-30)
• 2.80 meters at 234.15 g/t gold from 122.00 meters, including 0.80 meters at 816 g/t gold (TRC-26)
• 1.30 meters at 49.30 g/t gold from 18.15 meters (TRC-25)

AuEq figures are presented as originally reported by the company in its respective press releases.

Collective Mining was founded by the team that developed and sold Continental Gold Inc. to Zijin Mining in an all-cash transaction that closed in March 2020, for approximately $1.4 billion CAD in enterprise value, according to Collective Mining. The company explores for gold, silver, copper and tungsten at two projects in Caldas, both located within an established mining district alongside 10 fully permitted and operating mines, and trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “CNL.” Management, insiders, a strategic investor, and close family and friends own 45.2% of its outstanding shares.

David J. Reading, an independent consultant, is the qualified person for this release under National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and verified the technical information it contains. Reading holds an MSc in economic geology and is a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and of the Society of Economic Geology.