Article 125 of Law 31/11 grants prospecting rights for an initial period of up to five years, extendable in successive one-year increments to a maximum of seven. The extension is not automatic. It must be requested at least ninety days before the period expires, and is granted only where the holder "is not in default of its legal and contractual obligations."
The provision that reshapes exploration programmes is Article 125(3): at the end of the initial five years the holder must relinquish 50 per cent of the concession area, and at the end of each subsequent extension must relinquish whatever area the supervising body determines "after assessing the results obtained during that period." Retention of the full area is possible, but Article 261(4) prices it at triple the fifth-year surface fee on the portion not released.
Two consequences follow. First, relinquishment is an evidence-driven decision, not an administrative formality: the area a holder keeps depends on results the authority can assess. Second, the obligation is written into the investment contract itself — Article 119 requires the contract to specify "conditions for progressive relinquishment of the area" and the "frequency of report submission" from the outset.
Holders who treat the five-year mark as a filing date rather than as the culmination of a documented programme routinely arrive with the weaker half of their ground defended.