16. For the purposes of the second paragraph of section 79 of the Act, the Minister amends an application for renewal of claims by allocating to each claim the minimum cost of work required under section 15, up to the cost of the work carried out.
He shall allocate such costs by starting with the claim on which work has been carried out. He then allocates the remaining portion of work carried out to the other claims, starting with the oldest claim.
For the purposes of the application of the second paragraph, the age of a claim shall be determined according to the date and time of staking or according to the date of receipt of the notice of map designation. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the age of claims resulting from the conversion of mining rights into map designated claims, made in accordance with the provisions of section 83.2 or 83.6 of the Act, is determined according to the date of conversion. Where it is impossible to determine which claim is the oldest, the order of application is determined by a drawing of lots.