<<Despite Correa pushes a new constitution that seeks to cut socialist strengthen the public role in the economy, the mining law does not oblige the private to operate alongside the state, as it did in President Hugo Chávez with oil companies in Venezuela, movement that some investors feared was emulated

"Do not force the formation of joint ventures. That obviously the Government will be very respectful with companies that conduct their private projects and national mining theirs," said Serrano, who talked about "strategic partnerships" between private and public.>>

laross, thanks for finding this info; that is really good news. the salient point is that we won't have a state mining company muscling in on anyone's operation. and since serrano is #2 to chiriboga, he should be well informed on the subject.

he also said it is not yet clear whether the royalty would be based on revenues or operating profit, but i would be amazed if they tried to assess it on profitability. the other countries typically use a mouth of mine royalty because it is much easier to implement. if ecuador tries to base royalties on profits, they leave themselves open for all kind of creative accounting. every exploration and administrative expense you can think of ends up being charged against a mine, and suddenly there are no profits even though it's producing 500,000 oz. of gold per annum.

so i think the royalty will have to be based on revenue. they are now saying it could go as high as 6%, but for a project as robust as fdn, that's just another cost of doing business. only one more day to go, and unless something bizarre happens at the eleventh hour, i think most of the country risk is about to go away.