By Steven Bodzin
April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Gold Reserve Inc. told Venezuela
that the South American nation’s revocation of a gold-mine permit
was causing an investment dispute, giving the company the right
to file for arbitration in six months.
If the dispute with the government isn’t settled amicably,
the company will “make a claim for the fair market value of our
investment” when the permit was revoked, “in excess of $5
billion,” Spokane, Washington-based Gold Reserve said today in a
statement.
Gold Reserve has a concession to mine the Brisas gold and
copper deposit in Venezuela’s Bolivar state, one of the biggest
known undeveloped deposits of the metals. Venezuela last year
revoked the company’s environmental permit and denied one to
Crystallex International Corp., which had a license to mine the
adjacent Las Cristinas property.
“The statement implies” that negotiations “haven’t been
very fruitful,” Gold Reserve President Douglas Belanger said
today in a phone interview. While arbitration may take years,
“we’ve invested in Brisas for 16 years so another few years
isn’t going to hurt,” he said.
Gold Reserve fell 2 cents, or 3.3 percent, to 59 cents on
the American Stock Exchange. The shares have fallen 84 percent in
the past year.

For Related News and Information:
Top Latin America news: TOPL <GO>
Top commodities news: CTOP <GO>
Commodities futures curves: CCRV <GO>
Metals markets: METL <GO>
Venezuela government bonds: VENZ <Corp> <GO>

--Editors: Jackie Cohen, Greg Chang.

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

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dale Crofts at +54-11-4321-7735 or
dcrofts@bloomberg.net.