What organizations are eligible for conducting mineral exploration? What are conditions and criteria for conducting mineral exploration?
What is mineral exploration?
Pursuant to Clause 1 Article 2 of the Mineral Law 2010 of Vietnam, the definition of minerals is stated as follows:
- Mineral mean useful minerals and mineral substances which are naturally accumulated in solid, liquid or gaseous form and exist underground or on the ground, including minerals and mineral substances at tailing sites of mines.
Simultaneously, Clause 6 Article 2 of the Mineral Law 2010 of Vietnam states:
- Mineral exploration means activities to identify mineral deposits and quality and obtaining other information for mineral mining.
Thus, mineral exploration means activities to identify mineral deposits and quality and obtaining other information for mineral mining.
Thăm dò khoáng sản
Which organizations are eligible for conducting mineral exploration?
Pursuant to Article 34 of the Mineral Law 2010 of Vietnam stipulating organizations and individuals eligible for conducting mineral exploration:
- Organizations and individuals having registered mineral exploration as their business line may be licensed to conduct mineral exploration. They include:
+ Enterprises established under the Enterprise Law;
+ Cooperatives and unions of cooperatives established under the Law on Cooperatives;
+ Foreign enterprises with Vietnam-based representative offices or branches.
- Business households having registered mineral exploration as their business line may be licensed to explore minerals for use as common construction materials.
What are conditions for mineral exploration practice?
Organizations wishing to conduct mineral exploration must satisfy the conditions stipulated in Article 35 of the Mineral Law 2010 of Vietnam as follows:
- A mineral exploration practice organization must satisfy the following conditions:
+ Being lawfully established;
+ Having an employee in charge of technical matters who possesses a university degree in geological exploration and has worked for at least five years in mineral exploration and a deep knowledge about standards and technical regulations on mineral exploration;
+ Having a staff of technical workers specialized in geological exploration, hydrogeology, engineering geology, geophysics, drilling, excavation and other relevant disciplines;
+ Having necessary special-use equipment and instruments for the construction of mineral exploration works.
- The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment shall specify conditions for mineral exploration practice.
On what criteria is the Government of Vietnam to select individuals and organizations eligible for conducting mineral exploration?
Pursuant to Article 25 of Circular 158/2016/ND-CP on selecting applicants in order to grant the mineral exploration license in the area where the mining right is not subject to auction, specifically:
The selection of the applicants in order to grant the mineral exploration License in the area where the mining right is not subject to auction as stipulated in clause 1, Article 36 of the Mineral Law is implemented as follows:
- In case of expiry of notice period as stipulated at point a, clause 1, Article 58 of this Decree and there is only one applicant for mining, such applicant is selected to be granted with a mineral exploration license.
- In case of expiry of notice period as stipulated at point a, clause 1, Article 58 of this Decree and there are at least two applicants for mining, the applicant that meets at most the conditions in the following order of priority shall be selected to be granted with a mineral exploration license:
+ Being the entity that has contributed capital of the geological baseline survey of mineral in the area where the mineral exploration license is expected to be granted;
+ Having a minimum of charter capital equivalent to 50% of total estimates of the project for mineral exploration in the area for which the exploration is applied;
+ Being the entity that has used advanced and modern technology and equipment to obtain maximum recovery of minerals, has complied with responsibility for environment protection, financial obligations in terms of minerals;
+ Having a commitment to, upon the exploration results, extract and use the mineral to serve the domestic production needs in accordance with the mineral planning that has been approved.
- In a case where all applicants for the mineral exploration license meet the conditions as stipulated in clause 2 of this Article, the applicant that submit the earliest application according to the time specified in the receipt note will be selected to be granted the mineral exploration license.
- In case of mineral exploration in the areas with investment projects on construction of works as prescribed in Article 65 of the Law on Mineral, project owner shall be preferably selected to grant the mineral exploration license. If the project owner has no need to explore and extract minerals, the competent authority shall select proper mineral exploration entity to ensure the construction schedule.
In short, since minerals are a type of finite resource, it is necessary to have strict control over mineral exploration and exploitation. Therefore, for mineral exploration in particular, the Government of Vietnam always gives special attention to this activity.
LawNet