TITLES DIVISION                                                                                     

SUBJECT:     ADVANCE NOTICE OF LEASE EXPIRY DATES 

Under section 58(2) of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act (Act) a petroleum and natural gas lease is issued with a primary term of either 5 or 10 years.  At expiry of the primary term any rights not continued under sections 58, 61, or 62 of the Act are returned to the Crown. 

It has been the practice of the Oil and Gas Titles Branch to conduct a technical review of each lease approximately one year prior to its expiry date to determine continuation eligibility under section 58(3)(a) of the Act.  Where any portion of a Lease was found to be located within one or more recognized pools the Branch issued a Notice of Continuation Eligibility to the registered titleholder(s) describing the eligible lands and rights at that point in time.  A Notice was not sent if the Lease contained no eligible spacing areas at the time of our review. 

The final decision to continue a Lease or any portion of a Lease was and is made as near the expiry date as possible based on the information then available.   While the Notice served a useful purpose when exploration activity levels were lower, the Branch must now repeat a significant number of its technical reviews at expiry to account for information added after the Notices are distributed.  Industry has also expressed concern when the amount of land deemed eligible at expiry is less than that stated in the Notice.

 For these reasons the Oil and Gas Titles Branch will immediately discontinue its pre-expiry reviews and replace its Notice of Continuation Eligibility with an Advance Lease Expiry Notice sent to titleholders of all Leases up to one year prior to expiry.  It remains the responsibility of titleholders to submit continuation applications required by the Act.

For more information related to oil and gas tenures, please contact:

Colin Magee, Director
Oil and Gas Titles Branch
Titles Division
PO Box 9326 STN PROV GOVT
6^th Floor, 1810 Blanshard Street
Victoria BC  V8W 9N3
Telephone:  250-952-0335
Facsimile:  250-952-0331
Email: Colin.Magee@gov.bc.ca  

Gerald German
Executive Director
Titles Division