Any new mining lease is subject to the standard conditions outlined in Schedule 8A of Mining Regulation 2016.
Register your new lease against your mine
Clause 3 in Schedule 8A allows the Secretary of the department to approve multiple mining leases relating to the same mine being treated as a single lease for the purposes of Part 2 of Schedule 8A. This includes for the purposes of:
- preparing a rehabilitation risk assessment
- preparing a rehabilitation objectives statement
- preparing a rehabilitation completion criteria statement
- preparing a final landform and rehabilitation plan (required for large mines only)
- preparing a rehabilitation management plan (required for large mines only)
- preparing a forward program and annual rehabilitation report
- creating and maintaining records
- reporting non-compliances
- nominating a contact person for the mining leases
- notification of an application for or to modify development consent.
If a new mining lease has been granted for your mine, then you should use the online application form available on the Resources Regulator Portal (see image below) to register the new lease against your mine.
Mine operators will need to nominate all mining leases relevant to the mine in order to use the Mine Rehabilitation Portal (e.g. for the purposes of submitting the spatial data themes associated with the final landform and rehabilitation plan to the Secretary).
If your application relates to a new mine that does not appear in the drop down menu then please contact the Resources Regulator on 1300 814 609 (option 2, then 5) or nswresourcesregulator@service-now.com.
Add your new lease to any existing group security deposit
Mines can use a single security deposit to cover a group of mining leases (group security deposit). This can be done for a mine when the lease holder is the same across all of the relevant mining leases. This reduces the regulatory burden for a mine as only one rehabilitation cost estimate will need to be submitted for the mine / group of leases covered by a group security deposit. Further information is provided in Guideline: Rehabilitation Cost Estimate (PDF, 267.12 KB).
Mine operators should send an email to nswresourcesregulator@service-now.com for further guidance regarding this process.