UPDATE 2-Guinea lifts RUSAL export ban - minister

* Minister says RUSAL must pay environmental tax * Latest in string of disputes between gov't and miners (Adds detail, background) By Saliou Samb CONAKRY, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Guinea has lifted an export ban on products from Russian metals firm UC RUSAL's Friguia alumina refinery, the environment minister said on Wednesday. RUSAL shut down production at Friguia, the biggest industrial project in the West African country, last Thursday after exports from the port of Conakry were blocked following a dispute over environmental taxes, the latest in a series of disputes between the government and foreign mining firms. "We have decided to lift the ban on exports," Environment Minister Pape Koly Kourouma said after a meeting between his department and the mines ministry. RUSAL, one of several foreign resources firms operating in Guinea, must pay environmental tax amounting to the local equivalent of around $500,000, he said. Guinea is the world's biggest exporter of bauxite, which is refined into alumina and further treated to make aluminium. Friguia, one of Guinea's largest employers, normally produces around 52,000 tonnes of alumina per month, but that was temporarily cut by more than 50 percent in July as part of a company-wide move to reduce production in response to lower demand globally. Officials at RUSAL's Moscow headquarters were not immediately available for comment. Relations between Guinea's government, which took power in a military coup last December, and the mining firms with operations there have been fractious for months. In May, Mines Minister Mahmoud Thiam said the government was reviewing the 2006 sale of Friguia to RUSAL. Rio Tinto (RIO.L)(RIO.AX) disputes one of the previous government's final acts, the handing of part of its Simandou iron ore concession to another firm, but Captain Moussa Dadis Camara's administration has rejected the London- and Sydney-listed miner's complaints. RUSAL, which has debts of $16.8 billion, had already said it will cut aluminium output by 500,000 tonnes this year before an accident at a power plant in Russia last month which may reduce production by an additional 500,000 tonnes. The company produced 1.98 million tonnes of primary aluminium in the first half of 2009, down 10 percent from the same period last year. Full-year output in 2008 was 4.4 million tonnes. (Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Sue Thomas)