IMO Gold Reserve forced Hugo's hand by moving to formal arbitration. Hugo could have taken over Brisas at any time in the past 18 months, but he failed to do so until forced to act by GRZ's formal legal action.

I believe that the same is happening with KRY and Las Cristinas. Hugo fully intends to take LC back but is in no hurry to do so because the moment he does the clock starts ticking and he will eventually see an adverse arbitration ruling against him which will cost him face and money. He hopes that time is on his side and that eventually KRY will simply wither and die. For that reason he keeps some low level talks going to maintain the illusion that there is still hope, but never makes a binding agreement either way.

Hugo is a cunning politician but a naive business man who hasn't a clue about how business or finance really works, and he knows little about mining. Unfortunately for the country he has surrounded himself with "yes" men who follow his politics but know no more about business, mining or finance than he does. All decisions are political and there is little business logic evident anywhere.

The only reason he is still in power is that he has oil and oil infrastructure designed and built before his time by foreigners and to date that infrastructure and source of income is still working despite his mismanagement. The trained, intelligent Venezuelans who can, have left the country for greener pastures while the remainder struggle on watching their country wither and die because of the political power mongering of the Chavez administration and the ego of Hugo.

I am confident that Hugo has been shopping LC and Brisas around for years trying to get a politically acceptable party interested in his "deal" and had he found one GRZ and KRY would have been tossed out immediately.

He had a taker with Rusoro, but the only way RML could make sense of the deal was to actually take over GRZ which, if successful, would have eliminated the legal threat. They tried but failed, so they bowed out, bloodied and facing a legal suit from GRZ themselves as a result. Even RML wasn't prepared to move in to Brisas under any other deal that Hugo, could or would offer. That may change, but it seems even Hugo's "friends" either don't trust his word or can't make an economically sensible deal that Hugo will honour.

Hugo makes regular extravagant claims of "finance deals" "Russian miners" and JVs but generally when it comes to real "on the ground" projects they wither and die or are simply forgotten to be surpassed by an even more extravagant "announcement" later.

If there were real miners with finance and expertise from any country with real interest in LC and LB under the terms Hugo offers, we would see real action but until then Hugo just waits and dithers in the hope that procrastination will win in the end as time is on his side ...