BLM issues the mineral use authorizations listed below to qualified individuals. Some authorizations are not available for certain commodities. See the subparts referenced in each subsection for more information.

(a) “Prospecting permits” let you explore for leasable mineral deposits on lands where BLM has determined that prospecting is needed to determine the existence of a valuable deposit. See subpart 3505 of this part.

(b) “Exploration licenses” let you explore in areas with known deposits of a leasable mineral to obtain data. With an exploration license, you do not get any preference or other right to a lease. See subpart 3506 of this part.

(c) “Preference right leases” are issued to holders of prospecting permits who, during the term of the permit, demonstrate the discovery of a valuable deposit of the leasable mineral for which BLM issued the permit. There are other requirements. The requirements for mine plans are in subpart 3592 of part 3590 of this chapter. See subpart 3507 of this part.

(d) “Competitive leases” are issued by competitive bidding for known deposits of a leasable mineral. See subpart 3508 of this part.

(e) “Fringe acreage leases” are issued noncompetitively for known deposits of leasable minerals on Federal lands adjacent to existing deposits, when the Federal deposits can be mined only as part of an adjacent operation. See subpart 3510 of this part.

(f) “Lease modifications” add adjacent acreage to a Federal lease. The acreage to be added:

(1) Contains known deposits of the same mineral that can be mined only as part of the mining operation on the original Federal lease; or

(2) Has the following characteristics—

(i) Does not contain known deposits of the same mineral;

(ii) Will be used for surface activities that are necessary in furtherance of recovery of the mineral deposit on the original Federal lease; and

(iii) Had the acreage been included in the original Federal lease at the time of the Federal lease's issuance, the original Federal lease would have been reasonably compact.

(g) “Use permits” are available to holders of phosphate and sodium leases so that they may use the surface of unappropriated and unentered public lands for the proper extraction, treatment, or removal of the phosphate or sodium deposits. See subpart 3516 of this part.

[64 FR 53536, Oct. 1, 1999, as amended at 74 FR 641, Jan. 7, 2009]