Where can I find information about the licences granted?

Register of licences

Legal basis

In Germany, the right to explore and extract is only granted by the state for free-to-mine natural resources. The right to dispose of a free-to-mine natural resource is referred to as a mining license and can be applied for from the mining authorities of the Federal States (see How are projects for the extraction of raw materials approved and monitored?)

In accordance with Section 75 et seq. BBergG, the mining authorities keep a so-called mining rights register and a mining rights map in which the mining licenses newly granted under the BBergG or maintained according to Section 149 BBergG (so-called “old rights and contracts”) must be entered. The approval of mining activities themselves is continuously monitored in operating plans (see ii. Approval of an operating plan).¹

Public access to the mining rights register and the mining rights map was made possible within the scope of the German implementation of the D-EITI. Since July 2017, the following information on granted and maintained mining licenses can be inspected upon request to the mining authorities without having to demonstrate a legitimate interest:^2,3

• Owner
• Fields to which the mining license relates
• Date of application and granting
• Duration
• Mineral resource to which the mining license relates

Mining exploration licenses and permits can also be viewed due to the amendment (see also Approval of mining projects). In the EfA Bergbau project community, 14 of the 16 federal states jointly develop the BergPass application software, by means of which mining applications can be submitted in the future. The application to inspect the mining rights register will be available online in future.

The competent authorities can also make this information directly accessible to the public, which has already been the case in many federal states for some time. For example, some federal states publish clear online license registers. Other federal states are planning to set up corresponding systems. An overview of all online registers for mining licences and explanations of access can be found in the interactive map for D-EITI reporting.

Furthermore, all mining licenses in Germany in the hydrocarbons sector are published in the annual publication “Erdöl und Erdgas in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (Crude oil and natural gas in the Federal Republic of Germany) and in the BVEG annual report.

Example of an online system: the NiBiS map server

A good example of the publication of information on mining licenses on the Internet is the NIBIS map server maintained by the State Office for Mining, Energy and Geology (LBEG) in Lower Saxony. On this website, citizens can obtain information on more than 400 specialised maps on the topics of contaminated sites, mining, soil science, erosion, geology, geothermal energy, geophysics, hydrogeology, engineering geology, climate and natural resources. With regard to mining licenses, the following data and, in some cases, initial decisions issued are regularly available to the public on the NIBIS map server for the Federal States of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein:

• Information on the licence holder
• Coordinates of the licenced area
• Date of granting and validity period of the licence
• Type of mineral resource

Mining licenses in the NiBiS map server

Implementation in other Federal States

Other federal states have also made it possible to view the mining rights register and the mining rights map online. An overview of the online registers can be found in the interactive map for D-EITI reporting.

¹ The “complete text” required by the EITI standard corresponds in Germany to the documentation in the mining rights register and operating plans, as described in the context of the legal regulations described here.

² According to Section 76 (3) 3 BBergG

³ Model notice of a mining licence from the State Office for Mining, Energy and Geology in Lower Saxony