EddyCom, I think you are forecasting Hugo's strategy.

I am quite sure that while the majority of the Venezuelans in government who are involved in the permit issues and mining are honest and competant, they are plaugued by high level political control which is erratic and illogical.

As a result they have carried out their work in reasonable time and with all due care only to see their work thrown away by arbitary political announcements based on "spur of the moment" comments.

I believe that the gold sale law was a response to the demand made by Hugo and Sanz to the lawyers and officials to "get them out of this mess" when they were told that they are almost certain to lose billions at arbitration.

As a result I am fairly certain that all permits to mine will be issued to GRZ and KRY, probably just before, or at the latest slightly after, the commencement of formal arbitration proceedings. Because the new gold sale law can control the economics of all gold mines and transfer all of the profits to the government by regulation they can argue that they have not nationalized or denied the project but of course they have simply legally stolen any proportion of the profits that they desire right up to 100%.

While this may complicate the arbitration frm a legal point of view by providing Venezuela with a defence (at the present time they haven't any defence at all) I doubt that the tribunal will consider it to be anything but a ploy to deny GRZ the rights to mine using a financial route rather than the permit denial route.

As to whether GRZ should accept the permit, that is a legal question, but my gut feeing is that they should not.