Study On The Legal Problems Of Conflict Between Coal And Coalbed Methane Mining Right

For a long time, the coal has played a dominant role in the consumption of energy in our country, and is also the foundation for the development of national economy and China, while the coalbed methane(CBM) resources existing in the mining process have not been developed until the 1990 s. According to statistics, China’s CBM has a large storage, exceeding 36 trillion cubic meters, ranking the world’s third place, which is about equal to the number of fifty billion tons of coal or thirty-five billion tons of oil, and almost the same with the amount of China’s natural gas found on land. Under today’s situation of energy scarcity, CBM, as a new resource, its actual mining and utilization have shown an important strategy purpose. First, it can be a first choice of green resources used to replace the coal; second, its practical use can dramatically reduce the greenhouse effect caused by exhaust of methane, and greatly lower the occurrence of coal mine gas events.At present, the development and utilization of CBM in our country is relatively chaotic, even the CBM in the mining state is developed slowly because of the limitation of the right disputes, therefore, what is needed now is to establish and perfect corresponding laws and regulations to coordinate the relationship between different subjects. The conflicts of coal and CBM mining right is the conflict of interests in essence, its primary cause is two subjects can hold such two types of resources in one region, the coalbed gas is in a free state or attached to coal resources in the coal seam, then the conflict will arise when the parties to the coal and CBM mining right perform their respective rights. This conflict behaves particularly outstanding in the enrichment region of CBM resources. If there is no effective treatment, it will extremely interfere with the sustainable, healthy and stable development of CBM and provision of coal in China, resulting in the damage to continual, healthy and stable development of our economy and reliability and security of related energies. For the earlier stage of CBM industry, the conflicts on coal and CBM mining right have risen in Europe, Australia and some other areas more or less. Finally, these countries have solved such conflicts efficiently by various means such as law making etc., in combining with the specific situation, so as to ensure the stable development of CBM and coal industry.By analyzing the cause of formation of such conflict and drawing experience of China on dealing with the conflicts of coal and CMB mining right, this paper looks for the breakthrough of conflicts of coal and CMB and attach with author’s legal countermeasures. This paper is divided into three parts.First part, it describes the existing legal regulations from perspective of the definition and current situation of the conflicts of coal and CMB.Second part, it discusses on the legal issues of the conflicts of coal and CMB in China and puts forwards relevant theories, and explores the theoretical support on solving the conflicts of those two rights.Third part: this part is the core of the paper. Starting from the actual situation, this part explains the disputes and treatment of United States, Australia and other countries on the coal and mining right. The United States is the world’s first country to explore and successfully complete commercial development of CBM, so the specific analysis on its experience in dealing with such conflicts has provide a reference for our country to deal with the conflicts of coal and CBM mining right. Through the analysis of the case in China, my view is that the sale and approaches to cooperation as specified in the mining right transfer system are the most effective way to solve the conflicts of coal and CBM mining right. The third part proposes the suggestions on the legal regulations on solving the conflicts of coal and CBM mining right. It includes: to form and strengthen the laws and regulations on CBM; accelerate the transformation of primary market and secondary market of mining right transfer; strengthen the government measures for processing of conflicts of coal and CBM mining right; strengthen the application of civil laws and regulations on processing of conflicts of coal and CBM mining right. Especially, this part puts forward related measures for the government’s status on dealing with the conflicts of coal and CBM mining right.