Skip to main content Skip to main navigation Skip to site search Skip to navigation within this section

Breadcrumbs

Home ›
Building and energy › Energy and natural resources › Energy and resources consultations and reviews ... › Review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991

Review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991

The Government is carrying out a review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991.

On this page

This is 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.

The review is one of the actions the Government is undertaking to realise the vision in the 10-year Resource Strategy of a world-leading environmentally and socially responsible minerals and petroleum sector that delivers affordable and secure resources, for the benefit of current and future New Zealanders.

Minerals and petroleum resource strategy

Public consultation on a discussion document, exploring a wide range of issues and options, concluded at the end of January 2020, and 167 submissions were received.

Review of Crown Minerals Act 1991 consultation and discussion document

Decommissioning of petroleum infrastructure and other changes

The Government made changes to strengthen the regulatory framework for decommissioning petroleum infrastructure under the Crown Minerals Act 1991 (CMA) through the Crown Minerals (Decommissioning and Other Matters) Act, which was passed in November 2021.

This strengthened the CMA’s provisions to help mitigate the risk to the Crown and other third parties of potentially having to undertake and fund decommissioning in the future, and to expand its current enforcement.

Further information about the decommissioning changes is available here:(external link)

Crown Minerals Act Law Changes(external link) — New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals

Increasing flexibility and strengthening engagement with iwi and hapū

Changes have been made to the Crown Minerals Act 1991 (CMA) to provide flexibility in how the Government manages Crown-owned minerals and to strengthen engagement with iwi and hapū.

The Crown Minerals Amendment Act, passed in August 2023, aligns the CMA with wider Government policy, while maintaining the CMA’s fundamental role, which is to allocate mining rights for Crown-owned minerals within New Zealand, for the benefit of New Zealanders.

The changes include:

  • replacing the word “promote” with “manage”in the purpose statement of the CMA. This change supports greater flexibility in the management of Crown-owned resources as the CMA will now neither require nor inhibit their development.
  • making amendments to improve the quality of permit holder engagement with iwi and hapū.
  • minor decommissioning related clarifications.

More information

Regulation governing legal and financial responsibility for decommissioning petroleum infrastructure...

Published: 3 Aug 2020

Regulatory Impact Assessment to inform and support Cabinet decision to strengthen the regulatory framework for the decommissioning of petroleum sector infrastructure and expand the current enforcement…

File

PDF, 10MB, 44 pages

Topics
Petroleum and minerals, Regulatory systems, Regulating companies and other entities, Energy and natural resources

We welcome feedback at any time about our work on the Crown Minerals Act Tranche Two Review.

If you would like to contact us, please email ResourcePolicy@mbie.govt.nz.

Last updated: 22 April 2024

© Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/building-and-energy/energy-and-natural-resources/energy-consultations-and-reviews/review-of-the-crown-minerals-act-1991/
Please note: This content will change over time and can go out of date.