Closing a mine is not the day the operator stops digging and locks the gate. It is a legal procedure of its own: an approved mine-closure plan, accepted environmental rehabilitation, land hand-back, deposit settlement — and liability for subsidence or pollution surfacing after closure follows the company for years. This article sets out mine closure procedure under the 2024 Geology and Minerals Law and post-closure liability.
Closure procedure and liability
- The mine closure plan — Law on Geology and Minerals 54/2024/QH15 requires the operator to prepare and obtain approval of a mine closure plan when mining ends (reserves exhausted, licence expired or project terminated); closure is a mandatory procedure, not an automatic consequence of stopping work.
- Rehabilitation as the acceptance condition: environmental improvement and rehabilitation to the approved plan (LEP 72/2020/QH14) — regrading, stabilising pits and dumps, mine-water treatment, revegetation — must be completed and inspected/confirmed by the competent authority before closure completes and the rehabilitation deposit is settled.
- Land and assets after closure: leased mine land is returned under Land Law 31/2024/QH15 after rehabilitation acceptance; remaining works and infrastructure are handled per the closure plan (handed to the locality where suitable, or dismantled and made safe).
- Post-closure liability does not end with acceptance: damage caused by mining but arising or discovered after closure (subsidence, groundwater pollution from waste dumps) remains the operator’s compensation responsibility under the Civil Code and environmental law; surrendering the licence is not a release from historical liability.
Closing a mine in the right sequence
- Start the closure plan two to three years before the mine actually depletes: closure is the mine’s final project, needing its own budget, rehabilitation contractor and acceptance schedule — it cannot be done in the last months on leftover funds.
- Accept item by item and archive permanently: per-part rehabilitation confirmation minutes, the closure approval decision and land hand-back records — this file is the company’s shield when claims surface years later.
- Maintain post-closure monitoring as committed: groundwater, dump stability and subsidence over the statutory/committed observation period — and keep a clear liability-bearing entity or security mechanism if the project company is dissolved after closure.
A properly closed mine is one nobody mentions in a complaint ten years later. The closure procedure, rehabilitation acceptance and permanent archives are how an operator buys that silence — far cheaper than a subsidence case arising after the project company has dissolved with no clear party left to answer.
Frequently asked questions
When the mining licence expires, what is the closure procedure?
The enterprise prepares a mine closure plan for approval under Law on Geology and Minerals 54/2024, performs rehabilitation to the approved environmental plan, passes inspection and acceptance, hands back land and settles the deposit — actually stopping work does not by itself complete legal closure.
What is the penalty for not rehabilitating after mining?
Environmental administrative penalties under Decree 45/2022/ND-CP with orders to rehabilitate; the rehabilitation deposit is used to organise substitute rehabilitation and the operator still bears any cost shortfall plus related damage compensation.
After closure, if subsidence occurs, who is liable?
The mining operator remains liable to compensate where subsidence was caused by its mining activity, under the Civil Code and environmental law; closure and licence surrender do not release liability for damage originating in the mining period.
When is the rehabilitation deposit settled?
After the full rehabilitation plan is performed and the competent authority inspects and confirms completion in connection with closure acceptance; portions for already-accepted items may be refunded progressively beforehand.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council