it's worse than that

not that many companies

but companies and individuals

and many of the individuals (many from other countries) have been sitting on the concessions for decades, doing nothing, paying a pittance for them, just waiting for some large miner to offer a decent exit cheque

that's why the ecuadorians are ticked

also, if you boil down all the changes they want to make

the theory behind 99.9% of them make perfect sense

they may not know the best way to handle it strategically

but their heart is generally in the right place

they don't want these speculators getting rich when the commoner doesn't have food

but to any story- Reuters can put the 'close friend of Hugo Chavez' spin on it, and we have a whole new ball game

safeharbour