HOUSTON, March 7 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto Plc (RIO.AX)(RIO.L) said it remains committed to building more support from an Indigenous group that opposes its Resolution mine project in Arizona, which could supply a quarter of America’s copper needs depending on the outcome of a court case.
Resolution is key to the Anglo-Australian mining giant’s future as the project would produce more than 40 billion pounds of copper for the green energy transition. But that copper sits below the federally owned Oak Flat Campground, a place some Apache consider home to deities.
The mine would create a crater 2 miles (3 km) wide and 1,000 feet (304 m) deep that would destroy that worship site, which the San Carlos Apache tribe strongly opposes.
The tribe has refused to meet with Rio, saying it prefers to negotiate directly with the U.S. government, which in 2014 approved a complex process to give Rio the land containing the copper in exchange for acreage that Rio owns nearby. President Joe Biden put that land swap on hold in 2021.
For the rest of this article: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/ceraweek-rio-tinto-keeps-working-build-indigenous-support-resolution-mine-2023-03-07/