>Can anyone elaborate on just how much production license lands and exploration license lands Falcon has, and how this compares with the Falcon/MOL/FO jv lands .... in size

As shown in the map that John posted, the exploration licenses cover a very large area. However, both expire Dec 31, 2009. Since they have both already been renewed several times, by law, they cannot be renewed again. In the past, the Mining Bureau seems to have been quite lenient in that respect, and has given extensions even when they weren't really supposed to. I would imagine that will be the case here also. However, if the Mako trough is as valuable as we all hope, then there certainly is the possibility of a legal battle occurring. By law, the concessions are supposed to be made available to the highest bidder.

What I'm getting at is that you would think if areas not covered by the production license have any potential whatsoever, then Falcon should be doing everything they can right now to obtain enough data to apply for additional production licenses covering those areas.

From my understanding of the law, once the licenses expire, Falcon will have an additional year to submit a geological closing report in order to apply for a mining plot before the concessions are put up for tender. However, I don't think they are allowed to do any actual drilling during that period.

This is from Toreadors Annual report, it has a good explaination of Hungarian mining laws. They call this one year period an 'exclusivity period'

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We have two exploration permits that expire in March 2009.

Under Hungarian mining law, if we provide the Hungarian mining authority with a closing report accounting for the results of our exploration on the Tompa exploration permit area and such closing report is approved, for one year after March 2009, we will have the exclusive right to apply for a mining plot designation. If upon timely application for a mining plot designation, we met the requirements of Hungarian mining law for a mining plot designation, the Hungarian mining authority must grant us the mining plot.

We anticipate applying for a mining plot covering the relevant area within the Tompa exploration permit within the one year exclusivity period beginning in March 2009 and providing the Hungarian mining authority with the required information to obtain the mining plot designation for the relevant area.