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<br />advance royalties as a significant incentive to relinquish the <br />Lease. In addition to this incentive, advance royalties may <br />only be paid for 10 years under Section 7 of FCLAA. Because of <br />this inflexible statutory limit, payment of advance royalties <br />in lieu of production is not a viable option for this Lease. <br />If Powderhorn were left with no other option than to pay <br />advance royalties in lieu of production, the remaining reserves <br />in the Lease would be lost because the Lease would be subject <br />to cancellation in a court of competent jurisdiction when the <br />eleventh advance royalty payment would become due on May 1, <br />1988. <br />This Application is consistent with the Decision of IBLA <br />in Lone Star Steel Co., 84 IBLA 77 (IBLA 84-216). Lone Star <br />had appealed from a Decision of the Tulsa District Office of <br />the BLM which previously had rejected Lone Star's coal lease. <br />Lone Star had filed an application for suspension of continued <br />operations, or the payment of advance royalty in lieu of <br />continued operations, on the grounds that the decline in the <br />market for metallurgical coal, because of the depressed condi- <br />tion of the steel industry, made production of such coal not in <br />the best interests of conservation. IBLA remanded the case to <br />the BLM on the grounds that: <br />"The operation and production requirement <br />imposed on a coal lease may be suspended in <br />the interest of conservation if it is not <br />economically feasible to mine the coal <br />because of current market conditions." (See <br />headnote to Decision, 84 IBLA 77) <br />- 7 - <br />