Crown Minerals has given assurances it will carefully scrutinise 11 sweeping permit applications by Australian iron ore giant Fortesque Metals Group in New Zealand - including one covering almost 4000sq km of the West Coast.
West Coast alluvial gold miners have criticised the multiple applications, fearing the mixture of five-year exploration permits and two-year prospecting permits will tie up large tracts of land for years and deny access to other explorers.
The permits have yet to be granted, and no time-frame is outlined by legislation but they are generally granted or declined by Crown Minerals within three months.
Fortesque has taken the Australian resource sector by storm, propelling its Pilbara, West Australian, iron ore development project into a $A22 billion company.
It sent its first shipment to China in May after building its $A2.6 billion Cloud Break mine, 270km rail system and port infrastructure.
Fortesque shares, which traded in January 2003 at 0.5c, were yesterday trading about $A8.13 each, from a year high of $A13.15, making its chief executive and shareholder Andrew Forrest Australia's richest person.
Government permitting agency Crown Mineral's has logged 11 Fortesque applications, including two yet to be advertised, covering vast tracks of the South and North Island and covering more than 20 mineral types within each area.
Crown Minerals operations manager Matthew Brown said the agency had been made aware of the concerns of West Coast alluvial miners, and others from Southland and Tasman districts, which it would take into account before granting any permits.
The West Coast Gold Miners Association said the application was a threat to all mining operations, but in particular the alluvial gold miners, which bar existing operators from expanding into new ground, NZPA has reported.
"We will be looking at these applications closely and processing them in a diligent manner," he said yesterday.
Several criteria were to be considered, including whether Fortesque was looking for the appropriate minerals in the right location and if its planned exploration would "add materially" to the mineral knowledge, which is eventually added to Crown Minerals' historical data base, Mr Brown said.
He agreed the identification of 23 mineral types applied for under each Fortesque application was sweeping, but noted some areas were already known not to contain some of the listed minerals.
"We will be taking that issue up with them. Crown Minerals' emphasis is that there are resources there for exploration, but striking a balance is a consideration," Mr Brown said.
In a similarly sweeping application by Glass Earth Gold about two years ago, which was successful and granted the largest permit for an extensive $4 million aerial survey of about 1.3 million ha of Otago, the company was criticised by other mining interests for potentially locking up vast tracts of land.
Glass Earth has since completed the aerial survey and is now in the process of relinquishing permits to concentrate on a $3 million test drilling programme of at least five of a total 24 prospective sites identified around Otago.
Mr Brown said Glass Earth's application and subsequent relinquishing of land was a good example of how the permit system could work.
However, he noted Glass Earth was specifically after gold only and the West Coast issue surrounded river-bed alluvial gold as opposed to Otago's mainly hard-rock gold systems.
