EZ,

The Venezuelans already have a complete mining plan as getting the plan approved was part of the permit process.

I bet that the Chinese have their own copy as they were getting ready to proceed.

The fact that it wouldn't be exactly legal to use someone else's intellectual property, would give either one of them only slight pause.

Afterall, we had a complete set of PDG's plans in our possession, (not speculation as I personally saw it). When documents are being submitted to various government agencies, (not just in VE), they just aren't that secure.

I still believe that a buyout is the most likely scenario, but I was responding to a question about whether they could proceed without us.