Forms and fees

New fee structure from 1 January 2020

From 1 January 2020, changes to fees under the Mining Act as outlined in the 2019–2020 State Budget will come into effect. Changes include a re-determination of fees for exploration licences and a new fee for submitting or reviewing Programs for Environment Protection and Rehabilitation (PEPRs) and Mine Operation Plans (MOPs) for mines and quarries. Changes will also end the current scheme of returning rent payable under the Mining Act to tenement holders where they are also the freehold owner of that land.

Due to the abolition of some rental refunds, where the holder of a Mining Lease, Miscellaneous Purpose Licence or Retention Licence is also the freehold owner of the land under the tenement (or a related body corporate), the practice of not invoicing tenement holders for the full value of annual tenement rent will end from 1 January 2020.

Freehold landowners with no relationship to the tenement holder are not affected. From January 1 2020, tenement holders who are the landholder or a related body corporate will receive invoices for the full value of rent due and not 5% of the rent as they have in the past.

A schedule of new fees for the assessment of operating approvals for exploration, mining or private mine operations will soon be available on this web page. These fees will be tiered to reflect scale, complexity, and the associated cost of regulation over the life of the operation.  

Proposed amendments to Schedule 1 – Fees of the Mining Regulations 2011 will determine the annual regulation fees for exploration licence holders based on three new spatial zones.  

The applicable fee is determined by the zone in which the licence is located. A map to be published in the Government Gazette defines the new zones. The map showing the new zones is available via the South Australian Resources Information Gateway (SARIG).

Exploration Regulation Fee Zone 1: Licences within any part of the State not within Zone 2 and/or Zone 3 are charged at a rate the greater of $565 or $13.10 per square kilometre or part of a square kilometre.

Exploration Regulation Fee Zone 2: Licences within the Geological Survey of South Australia’s Gawler Craton Airborne Survey (GCAS) boundary, but not within Zone 3 are charged at a rate the greater of $757 or $17.50 per square kilometre or part of a square kilometre.

Exploration Regulation Fee Zone 3: Licences within both a 200-kilometre radius of the Olympic Dam mine site and within the Gawler Craton Airborne survey are charged at a rate the greater of $953 or $22.10 per square kilometre or part of a square kilometre.

The higher fee applies where an exploration licence intersects more than one zone.