VHeadline Venezuela News reports: Saturday's (September 6) editions of the regional Correo del Caroni newspaper say that Canadian mining corporation, Crystallex International is in talks with Venezuela's Basic Industries & Mining (Mibam) Ministry to devolve its interest in the Revemin gold processing plant at El Callao in southeastern Bolivar State.

The Revemin plant, acquired in 2000 by Crystallex from Bolivar Gold (now part of South African Goldfields), reached the end of it's contract with the Venezuelan State just over a year ago but had continued in operation to serve the needs of the local small-scale and artesanal mining community, despite decreased production.

Crystallex de Venezuela executives, however, hasten to add that the return of Revemin to state-owned CVG-Minerven control has no bearing on the company's continuing dealings with Mibam on the future of its exclusive mine-operating contract with the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) on the massive Las Cristinas gold fields some 200 kilometers (124 miles) distant from El Callao and that Mibam Minister Rodolfo Sanz (who is also president and CEO of the CVG) had previously made it clear that under Venezuelan law, Revemin was to be returned to State control when the current contract expired.

As regards Las Cristinas, which has a proven reserve of 21 million troy ounces of gold and is one of the richest and most important gold deposits in Latin America, Crystallex is on the cusp of receiving the final signal to begin the construction phase at the mine which is scheduled to create several thousand jobs.

The start-up has been delayed because of an earlier debacle with the Environment Ministry (MinAmb) which is under top-level instructions to resolve outstanding issues which Crystallex says have now been resolved, paving the way for an imminent public announcement.

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