Oh I think Barrick and alike are hoping that all shareholders have lowered their expectations.

I tend to agree. Who knows what went on behind the scenes, but that monopoly comment from Acosta probably had something to do with the size of our land package, which if you look at it, pretty much makes an entire mining camp. My guess is they don't understand buy-ins. Neither does Aurelian it seems, or surely they'd have farmed some of it out by now?

It could just be that someone big made an offer on the whole package, possibly Corriente included, like I suggested before, and this has them spooked. On the one hand, Aurelian doesn't have the resources to develop the entire land package, so that would slow things down - OTOH, if someone big took the whole banana (sp?) that might put them off as well.

These guys are leftists, so the old divide and conqueor is not unfamiliar to them. They'd probably be happier with a bunch of smaller companies they could control more easily than one or two giants, even though the giants could get things moving faster.

I'm thinking they've overplayed their hand here, but it never pays to take things at face value when dealing with politicians. Either way though, they just dropped a ton of cold water on mining in Ecuador, which may have been the intent.

This is all just my opinion of course, to which I'll add "what the hell do I know?" I'm just as in the dark as everyone else. I tried calling my friend Rafael, but he's not picking up the phone.

ebear