Mining proprietorship
Whoever wishes to mine freely mineable resources requires a production licence for this according to § 8 of the Mining Law or the mining proprietorship (more recently) according to § 9 of the Mining Law. Licences are granted by the responsible authorities. For the states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, the German continental shelf of the North Sea and a part of the German continental shelf of the Baltic Sea this is the State Authority for Mining, Energy and Geology (LBEG). Both the production licence as well as the mining proprietorship guarantees the exclusive right to explore and mine mineable resources within a certain site (licence area) as well as acquire the mineable resources as property. The licence area has limited aboveground sites but extends to an "eternal depth" and theoretically to the centre of the earth.
The mining proprietorship of the new kind was taken up during the legislation procedure in the Federal Mining Law as an additional form of mining licence in addition to the production licence. The mining proprietorship extends further than the production licence to a "freehold-equivalent” right, i.e. it is compatible with the land charge register and hypothecation. A prerequisite for granting a mine proprietorship is however among others that the applicant is the holder of a production licence for the mineable resources and the area for which he applies for the mining proprietorship (§ 13 para.1 Mining Law).
This mining authorization granted as a new form of right does not have any practical meaning. Since the coming into effect of the Federal Mining Law (in 1982) in the responsible area of the LBEG no mining proprietorship has been granted. However numerous mining proprietorships of the old kind (§ 151 of the Mining Law) exist, the subjects annulment, selling or splitting of mining proprietorships are still of significance.
Legally binding information from the mining authorizations book and the mining authorizations map (§ 75 of the Mining Law) can be obtained from the section 2.7 – faculty mine surveying.
An overview on the mining licences granted (spatial extent, holder, allocation time periods etc.) can be found on our NIBIS® MAPSERVER.
Mining proprietorship