Coal Licences

An application for a coal licence must be accompanied by the following: 

• Application Form
• Application Fee
• 1st year rent fee
• a plan or description of the boundaries as per section 11 of the Coal Act

The coal licence application form allows for the submission of one (1) coal licence per application form, and each licence can be up to a maximum of 20 adjoining units.  

The boundaries of a licence must conform to the grid as established by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act . The size of one unit of the PNG grid increases in size from 65 hectares to 85 hectares from northern to southern British Columbia. The mandatory field “FLNRO Region” (Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations Lands Region) will determine the hectares used to calculate the first year’s rental payment.

• 85 hectares will be used as an average for the West Coast Region, South Coast Region, Thompson/Okanagan Region and Kootenay/Boundary Region
• 75 hectares will be used as an average for the Skeena Region, Omineca Region and Northeast Region

Send application packages:

• Email to Mineral.Titles@gov.bc.ca with subject line: Coal Licence Application
• Mail cheque payment to the Vancouver Mineral Titles office (made out to the Minister of Finance)

The coal licence application form automatically calculates the prescribed rent. An additional application fee of $25.00 is also required. 

A coal licence application is not reviewed until payment is received by the office of the Chief Gold Commissioner.

Once the application is received a review is conducted.  Any deficiencies are determined and corrected by the client prior to the application being accepted for recording.

An applicant may request to amend an application by removing units from the application area according to the Coal Act Regulation. 

Refunds of the first year rental fees for the units removed from the coal licence application will not be processed until the remainder of the coal licence application has been adjudicated by the Chief Gold Commissioner.

Once accepted, applications are issued a tenure number and added to the coal map.

A land status of the application area is conducted to determine if the coal rights are held by the crown.  If the application is over crown owned coal, land referrals are sent out to numerous agencies, as well as any First Nations in the application area. The applicant may be contacted if issues or amendments to the application are required.

Once information is received by the Mineral Titles office, the Chief Gold Commissioner synthesizes this information to determine whether to issue the coal licence. 

Documents are sent to the applicant for signing. Issued licences are added to the coal map and the application tenure is removed.

Refer to section 13 of the Coal Act for complete information about terms and extensions.

A licence is valid for a term of one year from the date of its issue.

If a licensee complies during the term of the licence with every provision of the Coal Act, a request for an extension to the term of the licence must be made for further one year terms. 

Before the licence's term expires, you must submit the following:

•     a prescribed rent in respect of the location
•     the information and data required under section 8 (1) of the Coal Act.

Refer to section 9 of the Coal Act