Mining Regulation
Mining Regulation (“Regulation”) has published and entered into force on 32040 numbered Official Gazette dated December 11, 2022. The relevant Regulation contains the procedures and principles regarding the execution of the Mining Law No. 3213 for the purpose of operating the mines under the control and possession of the state. In general terms, the Regulation contains the definition and grouping of mines, the procedure for granting rights to real and/or legal persons for a certain period of time for the purpose of exploration, licensing, operation, development and production of mines.
This Regulation includes regulations regarding the documents to be submitted to the General Directorate of Mining and Petroleum Affairs for obtaining a licence for the purpose of mining exploration and operation, the necessary permits and exploration reserve development rights, abandonment, cancellation, handover and transfer works, public interest and expropriation works, ensuring that the mining operation investments belonging to the public or real/legal persons with the characteristics of public interest do not interfere with each other, granting permission for the production of building and construction raw materials to be used in the projects.
Regulation introduces some innovations that were not included in the Mining Regulation dated 2017. One of these innovations is the requirement to provide an annotation for information purposes to the mining registry of mining rights such as exploration and apparent reserve development which are granted to real or legal persons according to Article 7/5. Moreover, the former regulation was regulating that it is sufficient to obtain an exploration certificate for some mines or an operation certificate for operation activities has been replaced with the requirement to obtain a licence for all exploration and operation activities related to mines.
The Regulation, which includes broad regulations on operational activities, also includes an important change in terms of Occupational Safety and Health of the mine employees. According to Article 32 of the said Regulation, it is obligatory to have a Compulsory Personal Accident Insurance Policy for the employees working in mining activities carried out in the quarries in the licence areas within the scope of mandatory personal accident insurance. It is also stated that mining operations of enterprises that do not comply with the minimum insurance requirement will be suspended until the insurance conditions are completed.
With the enforcement of this Regulation, which will be executed by the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, the Mining Regulation published in the Official Gazette dated 21 September 2017 and numbered 30187 has been repealed. The date of the procedures to be applied for the operations and applications made before the date of enforcement of the Regulation is set out in detail within the scope of the transitional provisions. Regulation entered into force, as same date as its publication, on December 11, 2022.