Użytkowanie górnicze vs użytkowanie geologiczne : aspekty teoretyczne i praktyczne

The Polish Geological and Mining Law (The Act) determines two types of mineral deposit ownership: State Treasury Ownership (STO) and Land Ownership (LO). The Act introduces the term - mining usufruct (term adequate to mining lease) that concerns extracting of STO or geological activity in rock mass belonging to the State. The Minister of Environment, on behalf of the State and with the exclusion of other persons, can benefit from the subject of mining properties or dispose of its right to STO exclusively by establishing mining usufruct. The establishment of mining usufruct shall take place in the form of a written agreement between the State and entrepreneur and requires paying predetermined remuneration to the State. The authors conclude that the Act contains imprecise regulations concerning the lower limit of land property. This causes numerous difficulties in recognizing which parts of land property belong to the State Treasury and which belong to the land owner. The authors suggest that it is necessary to differentiate in the Act two kinds of activities and consequently two types of agreement between the State and entrepreneur: 1) agreement of mining usufruct, and 2) agreement of geological usufruct.