Minerven fails to restore production levels at Rusoro's expropriated gold mines

Venezuela's state gold miner Minerven has not been able to re-establish production levels at the mining concessions that were expropriated from Canada's Rusoro Mining (TSX-V: RML) earlier this year, union leader at Minerven, Hernán Salazar, told BNamericas. "Although the areas that belonged to Rusoro are now under Minerven's control, production levels remain low, in some cases at 40% of capacity," Salazar said. Vancouver-based Rusoro controlled 95% of the Choco 10 open pit mine and 50% of the Isidora underground mine through VenRus, a 50:50 JV with the Venezuelan government. In April, Rusoro closed down its operations and halted all mining in Bolivar state pending a government decision regarding control of its concessions. In May the government took over the assets and appointed an executive committee in charge of operations. In mid July, the Canadian firm filed an international arbitration claim against Venezuela before the World Bank's international center for settlement of investment disputes (ICSID) for nationalizing the company's gold assets without proper compensation.