(Adds Gold Reserve bid in fifth paragraph.)

By Steven Bodzin
Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Rusoro Mining Ltd., a Russian-
funded company buying gold deposits in Venezuela, expects to
start production of 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.
Rusoro is the government’s preferred partner to also set
up a joint venture to exploit Las Cristinas, which has
Venezuela’s biggest known gold deposit, Agapov said Nov. 14.
The company already operates the Choco10 mine in Venezuela and
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 in the Latin
American nation. The company wants to create a joint venture
with Venezuela to develop the mine, Agapov said.
Rusoro rose 6 cents, or 9.7 percent, to 68 Canadian cents
today in Toronto. It has fallen 58 percent this year.
“We’re trying to be very proactive,” Agapov said of the
offer for Gold Reserve. “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.”

For Related News:
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--Editor: Dale Crofts, James Langford.

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