Could Crystallex finally be nearing the end of its permitting woes?

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

And while the market has been sung this song many times in the past only to wake up in a bed of empty promises, Bill Dickson, a trader with Maison Placements, says this time theres more to it.

Theyve paid taxes and met with every request from the government. Theyve emptied the closet here, Dickson says. I believe theyve done everything possible and will get final permitting.

While initially the market seemed to agree with Dicksons confident assessment early morning trading saw shares climb past the $5.00 mark some of the old doubt crept back in, and the share price finished the day at $4.80. That still represented nearly a 13% gain on a heavy 11.7 million shares of trading.

Since replacing outgoing chief executive Todd Bruce roughly four months ago, president and chief executive Gordon Thompson put a stop to speculating on when the permit would come and instead focused on notifying investors and the general public only of significant steps the company was making.

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

The release says that the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) has told Crystallex that it has met the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources of Venezuela (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 a tax which amounted to roughly $4,000.

Now all that is left is for the Ministry to issue the permit to CVG, who can in turn give the go ahead to Crystallex to begin construction. CVG, a branch of the central government, is the owner of the land and mineral rights, and Crystallex is the equivalent of a contractor who will mine the ore and pay CVG a 3% royalty, the government itself a 3% royalty and then roughly 23% in corporate taxes.

As for when exactly the permit will be handed over, Thompson says, I think were 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 which he describes as nonsense.

When you meet with the ministry and other politicians their goal is to encourage foreign development of mining operations. Theyre doing it for the obvious reason of developing a revenue stream and because they dont 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: Im going to skip Venezuela.