Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2025
The Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2025 was enacted on 5 August 2025. The Act removes the ban on new oil and gas exploration beyond onshore Taranaki and signals the Government’s intent to reinvigorate investment in petroleum exploration.
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The Act amends the decommissioning regime to provide an appropriate balance between minimising risk to the Crown and the need to increase investment confidence, by introducing Ministerial discretion to assign liability to former permit holders or those who held an interest in a permit.
The Act also makes other changes to the Crown Minerals Act 1991, including:
- Changing the purpose of the Act from ‘manage’ to ‘promote’ prospecting for, exploration for, and mining of Crown owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand.
- Introducing the ability for the Minister for Resources to issue a Government Policy Statement on petroleum and minerals.
- Allowing for new methods to allocate petroleum permits.
- Providing greater flexibility under the existing exemption and deferral powers for decommissioning to consider exemptions for either the whole or parts of particular items of infrastructure.
- Providing greater flexibility and clarity around what types of financial securities may be accepted.
- Extending the confidentiality period for speculative prospectors who were impacted by the ban.
- Introducing a new Tier 3 permit category for small-scale, non-commercial gold mining.
The consolidated Crown Minerals Act 1991 will be available shortly:
Crown Minerals Act 1991 No 70 (as at 01 April 2024), Public Act Contents(external link) — New Zealand Legislation(external link)
For more information read:
Crown Minerals Act law changes(external link) — New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals