The environment variable RELATED_IMAGE_PODVM_PAYLOAD is required to enable image mirroring for disconnected installs. It's missing from the operator bundle manifest for downstream builds.

The fix is two-liner 

The environment var "RELATED_IMAGE_PODVM_PAYLOAD" along with the container image name as the value needs to be added to the distgit/containers/osc-operator-bundle/manifests/sandboxed-containers-operator.clusterserviceversion.yaml file

eg
name: RELATED_IMAGE_PODVM_PAYLOAD
value: registry-proxy.engineering.redhat.com/rh-osbs/openshift-sandboxed-containers-operator-podvm-payload:1.6.0
 

Test steps:

Install disconnected with mirrored images. 

install operator with peerpods option enabled

podvm image should be created