Sep 10 2010
Tethys Petroleum Limited ("Tethys" or the "Company") (TSX:TPL) today announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with the Uzbek State oil and gas company, National Holding Company "Uzbekneftegaz" ("UNG").
The MOU states that Tethys and UNG will conduct joint studies to determine the possibilities of improving hydrocarbon recovery on certain long-term production fields in the Republic of Uzbekistan in order to then sign a contract in accordance with the applicable legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
It is expected that it would be a similar contractual arrangement to the Production Enhancement Contract ("PEC") that Tethys has over the North Urtabulak Field in Uzbekistan that has operated successfully for some 10 years. Under this contract Tethys is allocated refined products for the oil it produces and sells these on the export market in United States dollars.
Julian Hammond, Chief Commercial Officer and Uzbekistan Regional Manager of Tethys, commented, "We are very pleased to have signed this MOU with our partners Uzbekneftegaz to work on more oil fields in Uzbekistan. This MOU is a key step forward and we believe that Tethys is now in a strong position to obtain additional fields which we could develop in parallel with our existing producing oil field, North Urtabulak, thereby increasing our short to medium term oil production base in Uzbekistan. Our existing project and experience in the country put us in a strong position to assess and take over new fields quickly and we will now work hard on achieving this goal."