Crystallex clear?

Crystallex International (KRY-T, KRY-X) says it is on the verge of receiving its long-awaited environmental permit for its massive Las Cristinas gold project in Venezuela.

And while the market has been sung this song before, Bill Dickson, a trader with Maison Placements, says this time there’s more to it.

“They’ve paid taxes and met with every request from the government. They’ve emptied the closet here,” Dickson says. “I believe they’ve done everything possible and will get final permitting.”

While initially, the market seemed to agree with Dickson’s assessment — shares shot past the $5.00 mark shortly after the news was released — some of the old doubt crept back in, cooling the share price back to $4.75 at prestime. That still represented a nearly 12% gain.

Since replacing outgoing chief executive Todd Bruce over four months ago, president and chief executive Gordon Thompson has refrained from speculation about the permit and instead focused on notifying investors and the general public of only significant steps the company makes.

He says the latest press release marks just such an occasion.

The release says the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) — a branch of the central government — has told Crystallex that it has met the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources of Venezuela’s (MinAmb) requirements for the environmental permit — the final permit it needs to begin construction at Las Cristinas.

To meet those requirements, the company had to post a “compliance guarantee bond” which Thompson says is in the $450,000 range and pay taxes of roughly $4,000.

Now all that is left is for the ministry to issue the permit to CVG, which can in turn give the go-ahead to Crystallex to begin construction. CVG owns the land and mineral rights, and Crystallex is basically a contractor that will mine the ore and pay a royalty of 3% to CVG, another 3% royalty to the government, and roughly 23% in corporate taxes.

As for when exactly the permit would be handed over, Thompson says, “I think we’re talking days, but it could be weeks.”

Regarding fears of possible nationalization, which have at times dogged the company, Thompson says they were based on media reports he describes as nonsense.

“When you meet with the ministry and other politicians, their goal is to encourage foreign development of mining operations. They’re doing it for the obvious reason of developing a revenue stream and because they don’t have much technology or the mining skills to operate some of these projects,” Thompson says. “It would be foolish to nationalize because it would only cause foreign companies to say: ‘I’m going to skip Venezuela.'”