Guidelines for Mineral Industry Reports under the NT Mining Act

Minerals Reporting Requirements

These guidelines have been produced to assist mineral exploration and mining tenement holders in the NT with the preparation and submission of statutory reports under the Northern Territory Mining Act as distinct from the Mining Management Act. The latter requires separate reporting. The Mining Act requires the holders of all exploration and mining tenements, other than for extractive minerals, to submit regular reports to the Department. These reports cover the exploration and other technical work undertaken on the title. The report must include all geological, geophysical and geochemical data obtained. The Mining Act provides for periods of confidentiality for some reports and has penalties for failure to comply with reporting requirements.

Reports must be in the English language and use SI units (eg g and kg rather than ounces and pounds). Locations must be given using the GDA94 datum. Local mine grid co-ordinates are not acceptable.

Digital contact details for the person(s) responsible for the expenditure statement and technical content of the report must be supplied. The report must have either a corporate or personal author or both.

Reports are normally required on a regular basis relative to the date of grant of title and when partial relinquishment is required (normally half the area of an EL is expected to be relinquished every year starting at the end of year two). A comprehensive final report is required at the expiration of any title.

Reports are to be submitted digitally in a prescribed format. Hardcopy reports are no longer required and will only be accepted in lieu of digital with prior permission. Electronic facsimile reports are not acceptable. Company prospectuses, technical reports to a stock exchange, or annual financial reports are useful to the Department, but they are not acceptable as reports under the Mining Act .

A statement of admissible expenditure is required on the prescribed form on the anniversary of the date of grant of each title.

If data from the title(s) being reported has already been submitted to the Department this needs to be stated (eg a geophysical survey that mostly covered an adjoining lease and was previously reported as such).

As the ground on which it occurs becomes vacant, all drill core must be offered to the Department’s core facilities, located in Alice Springs and Darwin.

All industry exploration reports and expenditures must be lodged with:

Geoscience Information
Northern Territory Geological Survey
Department of Regional Development, Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources
GPO Box 3000
3rd Floor Paspalis Centrepoint Building
48-50 Smith Street Mall
DARWIN NT 0801

Reports and expenditures can be emailed to geoscience.info@nt.gov.au. Geoscience Information will acknowledge receipt within three working days. Emails should not exceed 10 MB. Do not send expenditures other than for variations of Covenant or any reports to Titles. Do not email or address reports, data or expenditure forms to individuals within the Department.

As required under the Act, annual reports are held as confidential for the life of the title, but reports on areas dropped are available to the public. Such open-file mineral reports constitute an historical database that assists future exploration in the Northern Territory. An index of reports can be accessed via Mineral Exploration Reports (MEX) (formerly Mineral Industry Reports Management System (IRMS)).

Further information is available in the following documents and web pages:

• Download the Mineral Reporting Guidelines formatted as a text PDF  (PDF, 131KB)
• Mineral Titles and Permits
• Current mineral title information (spatial) on the Titles Information System
• Royalties and Eligible Exploration Expenditure at Territory Revenue

FAQs

• What should be on a title page for reporting under the Mining Act? (PDF, 8KB)
• Where do I send statutory reports, Mine Management Plans, requests for Variations of Covenant, Waivers of Reduction etc? (PDF, 31KB)
• Can I request an extension of time for reports under the Mining Act? (PDF, 5KB)
• What is PDF? (PDF, 6KB)
• What is GDF? (PDF, 9KB)
• What format is required for hyperspectral data? (PDF, 4KB)
• Do I have to “cookie-cut” large data sets for partial relinquishment or final surrender reports? (PDF, 5KB)
• Can I use the data submission templates from other Australian jurisdictions? (PDF, 4KB)

What's coming?

There will continue to be changes as part of an ongoing transition to submission of data using downloadable templates and / or online submission of data and reports. This will require mandatory formats for filenames. The proposed replacement of the Mining Act will necessitate other changes, so please check these guidelines regularly.

Enquiries and Feedback

Suggestions, questions or feedback regarding any of the above issues is welcome and should be directed to: geoscience.info@nt.gov.au.

Last Updated: 22 January 2009