Hudbay Minerals Inc. will appeal a ruling by the U.S. District Court in Arizona that set aside the approval for its Rosemont copper project in Arizona.
The court favored the Native American Tohono O'odham Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe and Hopi Tribe, which sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in April 2018 for giving the project a green light, saying that it sits on ancestral homelands.
Hudbay said Aug. 1 that it will file an appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as it believes that the Arizona court "misinterpreted" federal mining laws and U.S. Forest Service regulations.
The company reiterated that the project was given the go-ahead in June 2017 after a 10-year process that involved various government agencies and thousands of public comments.
In March, it approved a US$122 million early work program at Rosemont. The proposed operation was valued at US$496 million in an early 2017 feasibility study.
