Earlier this week, a judge ruled to vacate and remand a decision that would have allowed Hudbay Minerals Inc. to begin construction of its Rosemont project. The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona issued the ruling in the lawsuits that challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s issuance of a Final Record of Decision (FROD) for the project in Arizona.
Hudbay said it plans to appeal the decision and that the court “misinterpreted federal mining laws and Forest Service regulations as they apply to Rosemont.”
“We are extremely disappointed with the court’s decision,” Interim President and CEO Peter Kukielski said. “We strongly believe that the project conforms to federal laws and regulations that have been in place for decades.”
The FROD was issued in June 2017 after a 10-year process that involved 17 agencies at various levels of government, 16 hearings, more than 1,000 studies, and 245 days of public comment resulting in more than 36,000 comments, according to the company.
Rosemont will be an open-pit mine producing copper, molybdenum and silver with an annual life of mine copper production expected to be 112,000 tons.
