(Press release) – Oil and gas company Tethys Petroleum has opened up its Doris oil production facilities in Kazakhstan.

According to the company, oil is currently being trucked from this location at a rate of about 1,500 barrels of oil per day (bopd), which will increase to 2,000-2,500 bopd with the new production facilities. It is planned to increase production to 4,000 bopd with the opening of a new rail-loading facility in the fourth quarter of this year.

Tethys chairman, president and CEO David Robson said the increase in production capacity and the ability to produce refinery grade crude oil is crucial to the further development of the Doris oilfield.

Tethys Petroleum Limited is an oil and gas exploration and production company currently focused on Central Asia with projects in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is the only independent oil and gas company operating in all three Republics.

Tethys Petroleum is a public company with its primary listing on the main board of the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) – the world’s largest exchange for oil and gas companies – and with a secondary listing on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) in Almaty.

Key highlights:

• Oil exploration discovery in Kazakhstan tested at 6,800 barrels of oil per day
• Active appraisal program in 2010 to evaluate oilfield size
• Further exciting exploration prospects near to oil discovery
• Existing gas production in Kazakhstan
• 35,000 km² of high potential exploration acreage in Tajikistan in world class basin
• Oil production in Uzbekistan
• Opportunities to acquire additional projects

Tethys Petroleum derives its name from the Tethys Ocean, which covered Central Asia and surrounding areas some 250 million years ago. Many of the rocks, which were deposited in this ocean, now contain some of the world’s largest oil and gas fields in Central Asia – Tethys Petroleum’s focus area. Once the Tethys Ocean closed, it created the mountain chains from the Himalayas to the Alps. Today the only parts remaining of the Tethys Ocean are the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Tethys Ocean was named after the mythical Greek goddess Tethys, a Titaness and sea goddess who had 3,000 children, being mother of the chief rivers of the world. Tethys is also a moon of the planet Saturn.