GEOSCIENCE ACT Could draft regulations pose a threat to exploration companies in SA?
By AngloGold Ashanti senior specialist: legal Aviona Mabaso
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SA MINING
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Aviona Mabaso.
The draft regulations require extensive disclosure of prospecting and mining information. – Mabaso
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ining is a big, expensive business. To actually take a greenfields project from nothing to bankable feasibility and all the way to actual mining is an expensive exercise. It’s funded by investors who have the appetite for such a risk or gamble that millions of dollars can be sunk into the ground to find nothing. It is therefore no surprise that information on a mineral resource is closely guarded intellectual property of the explorers. In South Africa the Geoscience Act makes provision for the Council for Geoscience to serve as the national custodian for geotechnical, prospecting and all other geoscientific information relating to the earth, the marine environment and geomagnetic space, all of which must be lodged with the council. The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) also makes provision for the lodging of data with the council. The Council for Geoscience’s objectives are to promote the search and exploitation of minerals in the country, undertake research in the field of geoscience, act as a national advisory on geohazards to infrastructure and development and geoenvironmental pollution brought about by mineral exploitation and other actives, and provide specialised geoscientific services. The council is represented by a board that consists of a chairperson and officials appointed by the mineral resources minister from the departments of water and sanitation, rural development and land reform, as well as human settlements,
science and technology, Treasury, and four people with appropriate experience or knowledge. Although the Geoscience Act specifically prohibits the council from undertaking any mining development for itself or any research on behalf of any private institution that would favour another in acquiring an asset, the holders of prospecting rights are required to submit progress reports and data relating to their prospecting operations to the
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2021
www.samining.co.za
Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and the Council for Geoscience. No person may dispose of or destroy any record, borehole core data or core-log data except in accordance with the direction of the DMRE in consultation with the council. These records are not generally accessible to the public. Recently the mineral resources and energy minister published draft regulations for public comment that would require extensive disclosure of prospecting and mining information by rights holders and non-right holders. If enacted, these draft regulations would require all onshore and offshore prospecting geoscience data and info (e.g. technical reports, progress reports and prospecting reports) on reconnaissance and prospecting to be lodged annually by the right holder from date of grant or within 30 days of it lapsing. There is a regulation titled “lodgment of all onshore and offshore geoscience data and information, not related to reconnaissance and prospecting”. Although it was not specified, I believe this provision was supposed to apply mutatis mutandis in respect of mining rights and mining permits. All onshore and offshore geoscience data and info collected by any non-right holder would need to be lodged as well. Non-rights holders include South African and foreign governments, and private and public entities. Any foreign entity that undertakes geosciences research would need to inform the council within 60 days, and submit a report of their research within an agreed time
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