(Adds Brisas development costs starting in seventh
paragraph.)

By Steven Bodzin
Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Rusoro Mining Ltd., a Russian-funded
company buying gold deposits in Venezuela, expects to start
producing the precious metal at its Increible-6 mine in the
second quarter after securing government approval.
The company will revise its production forecast for next
year after Venezuela’s government approved technical and
environmental studies for the mine, Chief Executive Officer
Andre Agapov said today in a phone interview. Venezuela’s
Official Gazette announced the mine’s approval on Dec. 23.
“It’s fantastic news,” Agapov said of the decision. “It
changes our projections for 2009,” he said, without providing
further information on the Vancouver-based company’s forecasts.
Increible-6, an open-pit mine, has almost 3 grams of gold per
ton of ore, more than the 1.6 grams the company gets from its
Choco10 mine, also in Venezuela, he said.
Rusoro also is the government’s preferred partner to set up
a joint venture to exploit Las Cristinas, which has Venezuela’s
biggest known gold deposit, Agapov said Nov. 14. The company has
a “lot of common ground” with the government, he said.
The company is attempting to take over Gold Reserve Inc.,
which has rights to exploit the Brisas gold mine adjacent to Las
Cristinas. The company wants to create a joint venture with
Venezuela to develop the mine, Agapov said. He declined to say
whether he would make an offer for Las Cristinas.

Environmental Permits

Development of Las Cristinas and Brisas has been frozen
since owners Gold Reserve and Crystallex International Corp.
failed to win environmental permits for the mines this year.
Brisas will cost $500 million and take four or five years
to bring into production, Agapov said.
“The way we foresee it is to develop it jointly with the
Venezuelan government” in a 50-50 joint venture, he said.
“It’s an assumption. Nothing is agreed.”
The government will provide half the capital for the mine,
and the company would raise the other $250 million, he said.
“It’s not that difficult to raise half the capital
expenditure if you have a half already committed,” Agapov said.
Rusoro rose 5 cents, or 8.1 percent, to 67 cents a share at
3:15 p.m. today in Toronto. The shares fell 61 percent this year
through yesterday.
“We’re trying to be very proactive,” Agapov said of the
offer for Gold Reserve and other takeovers in 2008. “It looked
like we were the only interested party, and we took advantage of
it. If 2009 is a similar story, we’ll be even more proactive.”

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--Editors: Kevin Orland, James Langford.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Steven Bodzin in Caracas at +58-212-277-3711 or
sbodzin@bloomberg.net.