Chile's Antofagasta said it was considering a legal challenge to a refusal by US authorities to renew mineral leases in Minnesota, a rejection analysts and lawyers said could be overturned after President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Antofagasta said on Friday the renewal of two long-held leases in the Iron Range region of Minnesota, where its unit Twin Metals is developing a proposal for underground copper-nickel mining, had been refused. It said it was assessing the impact and would "continue to pursue legal avenues to protect its contractual mineral rights".
The leases were issued by the federal government in 1966 with a right of unlimited, successive 10-year renewals. Twin Metals filed the current lease renewal application in mid-2013 after the leases had been twice renewed without controversy. In a separate statement, Twin Metals said it was "greatly disappointed" by the refusals from the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service. "If allowed to stand, the BLM-USFS actions will have a devastating impact on the future economy of the Iron Range and all of Northeast Minnesota, eliminating the promise of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions of dollars in investment in the region," it said.
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