Figured I would try his number and lo and behold, he answered. Should have taken notes but I was walking outside so I will have to do this from memory...

Everything is on track for the Acquisition and Funding Agreement (A&F) to be wrapped up by July 30. A mailing will go out to the shareholders in early August that will summarize the agreement, which is 1500 pages! In connection with the length, RM said that "the Chinese government is making a huge investment in this project" and there are many i's to dot and t's to cross. 20 days have to pass between the time the shareholders are notified of the agreement and a vote can be taken. This puts the vote at the end of August as we have said all along. Assuming a positive vote, the JV could be completed by the end of September. According to RM, the permit would come sometime between the vote and completion of the JV. However, when I asked what the best case scenario was for the timing of the permit, he wouldn't bite. He said we all know not to play the timing game. However, he reiterated that there were high level government to government discussions about moving the permitting process along and these discussion involved Hugo and the highest government officials for both China and VZLA. He also emphasized that VZLA is heavily dependent on Chinese investment in many key areas, including the fact that all the refineries that can process VZLA crude oil are at capacity and China is building three more of these types of refineries for VZLA as well as lending VZLA 20 billion dollars in capital.

I asked about the gold sales law and RM said that there are some misconceptions about this law. First, KRY is not concerned about the aspect of the law that mandates that all gold be sold to the central bank. When KRY was mining gold from Albino and Tomi (remember those names, old timers?), they sold the gold to the central bank and made a good profit on it. Second, the law does not stipulate a lower price for the gold than the world price (I guess this is the spot price). Companies mining gold in VZLA sell the gold to the central bank at the world price. The sticking point is that they are paid in Bolivars and when the convert these bolivars back to another currency, there is no guarantee that they will get the exact exchange rate that was used to determine the price in bolivars for selling the gold unless they have a currency exchange license. KRY has not applied for this license but RM did not seem to think that this was big concern. First of all, this question will not be relevant for 2-3 years - until actual production begins. Second of all, the Chinese want to make money from this project (he called the Chinese "secret capitalists") so it is unlikely that VZLA would pull any funny business and bite the hand that feeds them (my words).

RM thanked me for hanging in there with my investment. I told him that actualy, at this point, I have more shares than I have ever held before. He answered, "Me too!".

I certainly feel even more sure of a successful outcome after this conversation.