Types of use licences
The legal basis of mining activity is written into the Georgian Law on Licences and Permits, where we find the list of use licences. The law defines the following types: the licence for the extraction of useful minerals; the licence for the use of subsurface space; and the general licence for the use of oil and gas resources, which is divided into two special licences — the special licence for the exploration and the special licence for the extraction of oil and gas. The list also includes the special licence for a hunting economy, the fishing licence, the licence for the use of the radio frequency spectrum, and the licence for the use, for export purposes, of fir cones and the bulbs of snowdrop and the corms of colchicum included in the annexes of the international convention.
This division is not formal: each type tells the investor its own subject. Work on minerals requires an extraction licence, the technical use of subsurface space an appropriate use licence, and an oil and gas project fits into the two-stage general licence — first exploration, then extraction. The hunting economy and fishing constitute separate regimes of natural resources with their own licences.