2008-07-16_REVISION - C1980007 (2)

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IBLA 2007-213 because "federal methane from the Aberdeen Mine must be leased under the MLA." SOR at 17. We disagree. The MICA leasing scheme does not contemplate and does not address the current situation at the Aberdeen Coal Mine, where a company has contacted BP..U to request a lease to capture gob gas from vents installed by a coal lessee. Further, concluding that the situation is controlled by standard form MIA oil and gas lease provisions would generate problems that would contribute to the disw-ray Vessels foretells. The MIA establishes that "[d]eposimof ... oil L . gas, and lands containing sucli deposits ... shall be subject to disposition.in the form and manner provided by this chapter, , . 30 U.S.C. § 181 (2000) (emphasis added). In section 17(a), directly addressing oil and gas leases, the statute again specifies that all lands subject to disposition under the MLA "which are known or believed to contain oil or gas deposits may be leased." 3d U.S.C. § 226(x) (2000) (emphasis added). It is well-settled under the MLA that competitive leasing is to be based tipon reasonable assurance of an existing valuable mineral deposit. American Gilsortite Company, 111 IBLA 1, 24, 96 I.D. 408 (1989), Gas already legally released into the atmosphere is not remotely a "deposit." While the terra "deposit" is not defined in the stature or the regulations, "A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms," Bureau of Mines (1968 ed.), defines "deposit" to be "anything laid down," and a "mineral deposit" as "a natural occurrence of a useful mineral ... in sufficient extent and degree of concentration to invite exploitation." (Emphasis added.) In short, a deposit is the mineral in place in the ground. Moreover, an MLA. "lease shall be issued only on the standard form approved by the Director." 43 U,S.C. § 3101.1-1 (emphasis added). Such standard form leases confer "the right to use so much of the leased lands as is necessary to explore for, drill for, mine, extract, remove and dispose of all the leased resource in a leasehold." 43 C.F.R. § 3101.1-2. It is clear from. the statute and implementing regulations that oil and gas leases were intended to-be- granted for purposes of expl-wing for, drilling for, mining fox, extractizng, removing, and. disposing of the-resulting production from oil and gas deposits. in place. That is not -the. situation here. Were we to try to extend the statute. to cover a situation where there is no deposit, but rather a coat lessee liberates (and thereby effectively extracts and removes) gas as a result of its coal mining operation, and then an oil and gas lessee "captures" the gas at the surface vent hole, serious problems would arise. First, it would put the coal lessee in the untenable position of effectively performing and paying for the functions with respect to the oil and gas deposit normally vested by the standard lease form in the oil and gas lessee, with the oil and gas lessee reaping the 175 IBLA 25 l l/8l d ML 'ON 4181 l asn Nd60: Z l HOU91'NU