While my primary interest is with GRZ, I do follow the activities in KRY with interest as both companies fortunes are linked by geographical location and politics.

Many here speculate that the holdup for Las Cristinas lies with the environmental permit, and the minister in charge; I personally doubt that. While KRY's application for environmental permitting was a little more complex than GRZ's (copper issues mainly) there was nothing that good engineering and a few modifications couldn't overcome.

GRZ got their environmental permit over a year ago but they have been stalled on the issue of an previously unknown document called the "Initiation Act". Apparently there are no new requirements to meet to have the "Initiation Act" issued and it is nothing more than a one page document acknowledging that the permits have been issued and the terms accepted. However work is not allowed to start until it is signed and delivered, and that simply hasn't happened and no reason for the delay has been given.

The fact that GRZ's Initiation Act and KRY's environmental permit , which are issued by different government departments, have been delayed without explanation or further demand, surely indicates that the order to delay the projects has come from a higher authority and is unrelated to the companies, their submissions, or progress to date.

Nobody has even mentioned that Crystallex will need an "Initiation Act" before any work commences even after all other permits are approved and delivered, nor has anyone even made any prediction as to how long that will take. It should be simply routine, but as GRZ has discovered, nothing is routine in Venezuela.

GRZ also had no idea that the "Initiation Act" would be an issue after they got all permits to commence construction approved, but you can be sure that Venezuelan politics will always be flexible and inventive when it comes to finding ways to fit their unknown and unknowable political agendas.