Practice Areas & Industries: Holme Roberts & Owen LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Holme Roberts & Owen LLP (HRO) maintains within its natural resources practice area a group with worldwide experience in mining and mining finance matters. This group brings together the knowledge currently available in several separate areas of the firm that can be applied to specific client projects. The group is led by firm partner Frank Erisman. Members of the group have experience in General Mining Law of 1872 issues; regulation of mining exploration and development, working with local, state and federal government officials and agencies; finance; hedging transactions; reclamation environmental matters; and employment issues.

Services Available

We provide counsel to our clients in all phases of mining operations from exploration agreements, through feasibility studies, mine construction and refining and service agreements. This experience has been developed within the mining group as the result of work for several large and small mining entities such as Newmont Gold Company, Oxbow Mining, and CH2MHill. Moreover, the mining group's experience has involved the wide range of commercial minerals from base metals to precious metals and from bentonite to zeolite. Examples of types of advice HRO's mining group can provide include:

• Project financing, gold loans and hedging transactions
• Land acquisition and assemblage
• Due diligence investigations and analysis
• Mineral Title Work
• Mining Leases
• Land exchanges
• Joint Venture Negotiations, including Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Form 5A
• Facility siting and infrastructure assessment
• Variances, permits and licenses
• Millsite issues
• Water rights development and regulation
• Environmental assessment and permitting
• Construction agreement negotiations and preparation
• Negotiation of contracts relating to feasibility studies
• Mining claim disputes
• Project financing and gold loans
• Boundary and extralateral rights agreements
• Milling and tolling agreements
• Federal lands management and exchanges
• Federal coal leasing and other non-oil and gas federal mineral issues
• Royalty agreements
• Rights-of-way issues
• Alaska public land issues, including Native Regional
• Corporation expertise
• Tar sands and oil shale issues
• Service agreements

Examples of mining transactions in which members of the mining group have recently been involved include:

• Representation of a major Canadian phosphate company in the stock acquisition of an Idaho mining and fertilizer processing company
• Negotiation of due diligence regarding the stock acquisition of Utah potash mine
• Financing negotiations for the purchase and construction of a coal longwall system
• Due diligence investigation and contract negotiation regarding the acquisition of the largest United States platinum mining operation
• Representation of a major North American gold company in the acquisition of large exploration and development interests in Nevada and the negotiation of joint venture agreements for their development
• Representation of a U.S.-based gold company in the negotiation of a major Uzbekistan mining tender involving an existing gold facility
• Advising a French banking institution regarding a copper mining privatization in the Urals
• Advising a U.S.-based gold company regarding the acquisition of a major gold concession in the Union of Myanmar and negotiation of a joint development agreement for the concession
• Negotiation and creation of a joint venture to govern the development of a gold concession in Brazil, negotiation of the acquisition of concession rights on the same project and assistance in the sale of this project
• Negotiation, on behalf of the Republic of Suriname, of a gold mining concession and mineral venture agreement with a Canadian company, including review of local law and environmental issues
• Preparation of a form mining exploration agreement for the Republic of Suriname
• Advising an existing client regarding the establishment of a mining equipment franchise in Mongolia
• Negotiation of concessions for a gold and silver project in Costa Rica, including negotiation of the financing of the project, the obtaining of O.P.I.C. insurance, an export contract and tax concessions for the project, the development of the project into a producing mine, and negotiation and creation of a joint venture arrangement for the mining of the project
• Preparation of precious metals exploration agreements in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, the Philippines and Indonesia including review of local law, tax, repatriation and environmental issues
• Assistance in the acquisition and development of a tungsten mine in Bolivia, as well as the eventual sale of that mine
• General representation of a coal company with operating underground mines in Colorado, including acquisition of interests in a mine from a partner, transfer and modification of federal coal leases, modification of reclamation permits, other matters relating to federal coal leasing and reclamation, labor issues, and financing of long wall mining system
• Representation of a subsidiary of a Midwestern utility in the sale of its nonproducing coal properties in Wyoming
• Performance of an exhaustive acquisition and environmental due diligence review for a subsidiary of a Western utility in connection with possible acquisition of operating coal mines in Utah and Appalachia
• Representation of a major timber company and other major landowners in the negotiation of coal mining leases on properties in Alabama, Colorado and Washington
• Representation of a major Midwestern utility on federal, state and fee coal lease royalty issues and state severance and ad valorem tax issues arising from restructuring of take or pay provisions in long-term coal sales contracts from mines in Wyoming and Montana
• Representation of a major Colorado industrial company in the sale of an operating coal mine in Colorado and the negotiation of a long-term coal supply agreement to satisfy the coal requirements of the seller's industrial operations in the metro-Denver area
• Representation of the owners of a corporation with proprietary coal processing technology that could qualify for the Section 29 tax credit in the sale of the company to an international mining company and structuring of various royalty, tax credit and intellectual property arrangements
• Representation of an international mining company in conducting environmental compliance audits on three surface coal mines on tribal lands in New Mexico and handling follow-up SMCRA and federal Clean Water Act permitting and enforcement matters for the company
• Preparation of briefs to the Interior Board of Land Appeals in support of modification of expansion of gold mine operating plans in Nevada