RUSAL claims initial win in Guinea court battle

* Appeal court overturns lower court ruling on ownership

* Decision a step toward cooperation between RUSAL, Guinea

CONAKRY, March 22 （Reuters） - Aluminium producer RUSAL  has won a stage in an ongoing legal battle with Guinea over ownership of the Friguia alumina refinery in the West African country, the firm said on Monday.

The Guinean appeal court overturned a ruling by a lower court last September that said RUSAL bought Friguia illegally in 2006, vastly underpaying for Guinea's largest industrial project. Guinea can in turn appeal against this latest decision.

Since the September ruling, the two sides have said they would negotiate, a move seen as paving the way for RUSAL to carry on running the plant, which can produce 640,000 tonnes of aluminium feedstock alumina per year, and is a major employer in the poor country.

“RUSAL views this decision as providing a favourable step toward expanding the long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation between RUSAL and the Republic of Guinea,” the firm said in a statment on Monday.

“It's a separate procedure from our campaign to get what is due to us financially,” Guinea's Mines Minister Mahmoud Thiam told Reuters, adding he was not aware of the appeal court's decision.

Thiam was reappointed to head the mines ministry last month when authorities named a transitional government which is intended to usher the country, whose income depends on mineral exports, to democratic elections.

That vote, scheduled for June, is intended to end a political crisis that has persisted since a Decmber 2008 military coup in the world's biggest bauxite exporter.

（Reporting by Saliou Samb; Editing by Daniel Magnowski）