"so when Chavez said Venrus will mine LC in very specific terms"

I don't think that it was really clear at all that Hugo said that if you read the original Spanish transcript. Sure the Google and other translations sounded that way, but there were significant subleties that they missed, and it was not at all clear that he made any such claim.

The speech by Hugo that was excerpted as the transcript (one for domestic political consumption) threw a number of disparate ideas together and it appeared very likely that he was not saying what you state. Moreover, whatever he said (as usual) he may not have meant.

This is very typical for Hugo's speeches, and we get the usual confusion over what he meant. Seems like we will find out when we find out.