33   Rights of holders of assessment leases

The holder of an assessment lease has the exclusive right to prospect for petroleum and to assess any petroleum deposit on the land comprised in the lease.

Note. An assessment lease is designed to allow retention of rights over an area in which a significant petroleum deposit has been identified, if mining the deposit is not commercially viable in the short term but there is a reasonable prospect that it will be in the longer term. The holder is allowed to continue prospecting operations and to recover petroleum in the course of assessing the viability of commercial mining.