Perpetua expects US approval for antimony mine by year's end

(Reuters) -Perpetua Resources said on Thursday it expects the U.S. government to approve its antimony and gold project in northern Idaho by the end of the year, news that sent the company's stock up more than 12%.

Support for the mine, backed by hedge fund manager John Paulson, comes as part of Washington's evolving strategy to offset China's critical minerals sector dominance after Beijing last month imposed export restrictions on antimony, a metal used to make weaponry, solar panels, flame retardants and other goods for which there are no current U.S. resources.

The U.S. Forest Service plans to release the final environmental impact statement for Perpetua's Stibnite mine on Friday alongside a draft record of decision. The final record of decision - essentially the mine's permit - is expected to be issued by the end of December, the company and government agency said in separate releases.

The permitting news comes after Perpetua in April received a letter of interest from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the government's export credit agency, for a loan worth up to $1.8 billion to fund the Stibnite project.

The project was forecast in 2020 to cost $1.3 billion, a number expected to rise due to post-pandemic inflation.

The Pentagon has already committed nearly $60 million to fund permitting for the project, which would entail cleaning and expanding a site that was polluted by World War Two-era mining. The site has estimated reserves of 148 million pounds of antimony.

The deposit also contains an estimated 6 million ounces of gold. While gold is not a critical mineral, its production is seen as helping to financially buttress the mine's antimony production and ensure a domestic supply of the metal for the Pentagon.

Concerns have grown that China could try to harm the Perpetua mine's prospects by ramping up its own production of antimony in a bid to gain global market share, something Chinese-linked producers of nickel, cobalt and other critical minerals have systematically done in recent years.

The project is "a win for Idaho, it's a win for the environment, and it's a win for America's national security," said Jon Cherry, who became Perpetua's CEO earlier this year.

The project has not yet won the support of Idaho's Nez Perce tribe, which is concerned the mine could affect the state's salmon population. The company and the tribe, however, have started discussing water restoration projects.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder in Los Angeles and Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Marguerita Choy)