It is an intersting saga and some say LC is cursed by the family of those who discovered it. They were tricked out of the ownership rights. Afterword, the 1st guy destined to mine it went from throwing money from his helicopter in jubilation to being bodily dragged from the country and dying in obscurity.

Then there was Placer Dome who could never make it profitable to mine. On the eve of their concession expiration they sold the concession to Venessa for $50. This was never sanctioned by VZ and they were thrown out when the contract was awarded to KRY. Vanessa has used Placer Dome's "investments" as their base for their arbitration but I've never seen anything that states they actually spent a dime. This is why their case has stalled...it is a joke.

KRY was the "model" for contracts. Then came the coup attempt and the unfortunate hapinstance that one of the architects of the coup was a BOD member of KRY VZ. Some say Hugo never forgave KRY for that and that this is the reason we have not been given a permit. I don't know if that is true, but in the 4+ years I have been in KRY I have never seen a positive comment about KRY from Hugo (many negative ones though). The AN and CVG have supported us but never Chavez.

Now it seems KRY too has been kicked to the street, though unlike Vanessa we do have some strength in our contract. If Hugo thought he could kick us out without repurcussions he would have already done so.

Hopefully we will become the 1st LC miner to come out of this with some modest gain. The question and the curse will then fall to someone else. Will we see similar stories from whoever takes control after KRY in the years to come? Who knows. Perhaps the gold will never come out of the ground though hopefully we will leave this saga a little less poor, perhaps even a bit more wealthy, but regardless a whole lot wiser.