New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals is a brand name used by the Energy and Resource Markets branch of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). MBIE administers the Crown Minerals Act 1991 (and its predecessors) on behalf of the New Zealand Government.

• Crown Minerals Act (CMA) discussion document open for consultation
• A Minerals and Petroleum Resource Strategy for Aotearoa New Zealand
• Compliance roadshows for mineral permits
• Permit Webmaps application updated
• Example mine plans for Tier 1 minerals permits now published
• New National Manager Petroleum and Minerals appointed
• Summer holidays are coming.

---

Submissions are now invited on the discussion document for the review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991. The review seeks to ensure the Act’s settings contribute to mining that responsibly balances environmental, social, and economic considerations and meets the evolving needs of New Zealand’s society.

How to have your say

The discussion document can be found on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Have your say page.

We encourage you to have your say on the discussion document before the deadline of 20 December.

Thank you to everyone who submitted during the consultation period for the draft Minerals and Petroleum Resource Strategy for Aotearoa New Zealand: 2019-2019 (the Resource Strategy). 

We received 546 submissions from a range of groups and individuals, including:

• iwi
• environmental groups
• the oil and gas sector
• the minerals and quarrying sector
• research institutes and
• the general public.

We have now completed our analysis of these submissions and finalised the Resource Strategy.

You can find our analysis, the submissions and the final version of the Resource Strategy published on the MBIE website.

Our compliance team are travelling around the country meeting with iwi and mineral permit holders to introduce themselves and talk about their role.

The first three of these meetings, held in Greymouth, Dunedin and Invercargill, have been very successful. At each event, a presentation by our staff was followed by a two hour discussion about issues and how we can work with the industry going forward.

There will be a further meeting in Thames next week. It’s not too late to RSVP to the Thames event, so if you would like to attend please email ERMCompliance@mbie.govt.nz

We’ve made some updates to the Permit Webmaps application. The new version provides better browser and platform support, including access via mobile devices. It also allows for additional capability in the future. The web address has not changed, so there is no need to change bookmarks but you will notice some changes to how the Webmaps are presented.

Mineral permit webmaps

Petroleum permit webmaps

Part of the annual summary report requirement for Tier 1 mineral permits is to submit a mine plan to us. We’ve recently published a number of Tier 1 mine plans on the NZP&M website that show best practice examples. These mine plans show the level of detail and quality that we expect from Tier 1 permit holders. You can find the examples on the annual summary report page under the Annual summary reports for Tier 1 permit holders heading.

Susan Baas has been appointed National Manager Petroleum & Minerals. Susan is currently the Manager Risk, Assurance & Governance in the Provincial Development Unit at MBIE.

Susan has a wealth of experience in regulatory, compliance and legal positions and spent her first 18 months after she joined MBIE in 2015 working within the legal team that supports the Energy & Resource Markets branch.

Prior to joining MBIE, Susan spent the first 15 years of her career as a lawyer in the private sector, including for Contact Energy and New Zealand Energy Corp.  Susan takes up her new role on 16 December 2019.

Sarah Kenward, who has been acting National Manager Petroleum & Minerals, will return to her substantive role as Manager, Mineral Operations from that date. Natalia Albert, who was acting Manager, Mineral Operations, has left MBIE for a role at Statistics NZ.

This will be our final issue of the Regulator’s Update for 2019. We’d like to wish our readers a happy holiday season and look forward to sharing information with you next year.

The application close out period is between 20 December and 15 January. However, our office is open until the afternoon of 24 December and then reopens on 3 January 2020.

If there’s anything specific you’d like covered in this newsletter, please email us at nzpam@mbie.govt.nz