Tom Szabo

Ecuador Mining: More Positive by the Day

This is positive but I'm not sure the new mining law could/would prevent a repeat of the recent fiasco in Venezuela. To wit, an arbitrary, after-the-fact environmental ruling that effectively bans large-scale operations in certain regions. When I look at pictures of FDN on Aurelian's website, I see lush, tropical rainforest that looks a bit like some of the pictures that used to appear on the Crystallex website before they were all removed for what I think are obvious reasons. This is not like the high Andean, barren mining areas in Chile and much of Peru, Bolivia, etc. It is like some areas of Mexico and Brazil, but in those places mining has a long precedence. By contrast, it is also like some areas in Argentina, such as Patagonia, where mining isn't likely to take place anytime soon. What I'm saying is that the new mining law is irrelevant without a guarantee of the rule of law in the first place especially when environmental sensitivity comes into play.