Geothermal handbook: PlanninG and Financing power Generation t e c h n I c a L r e p o r t 2 / 2

Principles governing geothermal rights Management
The core principles that govern mining operations in many countries, and which also are applicable to 
the exploration and exploitation of geothermal resources, are: 
• 
Resources belong to the state (or, in rare cases, to the surface land owner).
• 
The right to explore and exploit the resources may be temporarily transferred to an individual
or a corporate entity through a written document, normally called a license or lease.
• 
The rights granted through such a license or lease are independent from surface or land
ownership rights.
• 
The granted license or lease usually does not provide for visible physical boundaries (such as
fencing); instead, the area is usually delimited by geographic references or coordinates.
• 
The holders of the granted license or lease must fulfill pre-established conditions to maintain
their rights over the area.
• 
When the validity of the granted license or lease ends, the rights return to the state (or to the
surface land owner).
Some basic principles should also govern the ownership rights to geothermal resources, which 
must always be granted in a transparent, objective, competitive, and non-discriminatory way. Those 
principles are: