Published: May 23, 2025 | Share This

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Perpetua Resources said the United States Army Corps of Engineers has issued Perpetua’s clean water act section 404 permit for the Stibnite Gold Project in Idaho. This decision comes after eight years of rigorous interagency federal permitting, and was the last federal permit required to progress towards construction.

With receipt of this permit, Perpetua Resources is focused on finalizing the remaining state permits and securing project financing needed to begin construction.

“Today’s final federal permit from the Army Corps marks the culmination of eight years of permitting, scientific study, project refinement, and lots of hard work. We are immensely proud to achieve this milestone. It’s time to move forward and take the Stibnite Gold Project into a new and exciting phase of development,” said Jon Cherry, president and CEO of Perpetua Resources.

The Stibnite Gold Project is positioned to deliver significant environmental and economic benefits to rural Idaho while enhancing U.S. national security. It is expected to bring significant investment and create an average of approximately 550 jobs in the region during operations. The project is projected to be one of the highest-grade open-pit gold mines in the United States, with gold reserves of approximately 4.8 million ounces, and is expected to produce approximately 450,000 ounces of gold annually over its first four years of production. Additionally, the project holds an estimated 148-million-pound antimony reserve — the only identified antimony reserve in the U.S. and one of the largest reserves outside of Chinese control. It is estimated the project could meet about 35 percent of U.S. antimony demand during its initial six years of production, based on the 2023 USGS antimony commodity summary. Antimony is classified as a critical mineral essential for technology, defense, and energy applications. Developing a domestic source of antimony through the Stibnite Gold Project can help bolster America’s strategic mineral security and independence.

The Stibnite Gold Project is designed to redevelop the historical Stibnite Mining District for gold, silver and antimony, while conducting environmental restoration to rehabilitate the abandoned site. Perpetua’s vision to restore the site is a central tenet of the approved mine plan.

The project is designed to:
• Remove, reprocess, and safely store legacy tailings and waste to improve water quality
• Restore the natural flow of the headwaters of the Salmon River and reopen fish passage to miles of critical
  spawning habitat that have been blocked for over 80 years
• Provide a net increase in wetland acres and an uplift in wetlands quality

Perpetua Resources began the formal permitting process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 2016. As the lead permitting agency, the U.S. Forest Service issued a draft environmental impact statement in 2020, a supplemental draft environmental impact statement in 2022, a final environmental impact statement and draft record of decision in September of 2024, and a final record of decision in January 2025. During the public comment periods, more than 23,000 letters were submitted supporting the project.

In April 2025, the Stibnite Gold Project was selected by the Trump Administration as a transparency project in response to President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order to bolster American mineral production and was included on the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council FAST-41 dashboard. The FAST-41 Transparency Projects dashboard is designed to enhance interagency accountability and transparency for review of projects selected by the Permitting Council under the March 2025 Executive Order.

“As we celebrate receiving the final federal permit for the Stibnite Gold Project, we applaud the National Energy Dominance Council and the Permitting Council’s efforts to streamline permitting and propel critical mining projects nationwide,” said Cherry.

“We believe this administration’s commitment to boosting efficiency without compromising rigorous environmental standards can have a transformational impact on American mining,” added Cherry.

As a cooperating agency, the U.S. Army Corps has been involved in the interagency permitting review of the Stibnite Gold Project since 2017. It began formally evaluating Perpetua Resources’ Section 404 clean water act permit application in 2023. The permit was delivered on time and in accordance with the Army Corps’ anticipated Q2 2025 decision timetable and the timeline set forth on the FAST-41 dashboard.

Perpetua Resources, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, is focused on the exploration, site restoration and redevelopment of gold-antimony-silver deposits in the Stibnite-Yellow Pine district of central Idaho that are encompassed by the Stibnite Gold Project. The project is one of the highest-grade, open pit gold deposits in the United States and is designed to apply a modern, responsible mining approach to restore an abandoned mine site and produce both gold and the only mined source of antimony in the United States. Further advancing Perpetua Resources’ ESG and sustainable mining goals, the project will be powered by the lowest carbon emissions grid in the nation and a portion of the antimony produced from the project will be supplied to Ambri, a U.S.-based company commercializing a low-cost liquid metal battery essential for the low-carbon energy transition. Perpetua Resources has been awarded a Technology Investment Agreement of $59.2 million in Defense Production Act Title III funding to advance construction readiness and permitting of the project. Antimony trisulfide from Stibnite is the only known domestic source of antimony that can meet U.S. defense needs for many small arms, munitions, and missile types.

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