Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Feb. 23 / Trend H.Hasanov /
President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has appointed Sahatmyrad Mammedov as chairman of the Turkmengaz State Concern who previously worked as the director of the oil refinery in the city of Turkmenbashi - the largest in the country, the official Turkmen source reported on Thursday.
Kakageldi Abdyllaev, former head of a department of Turkmengaz has been appointed deputy head of the state concern. Former head of the Turkmengaz Akmurad Yegeleev was recently appointed deputy prime minister for construction.
Turkmenistan is one of the key suppliers of natural gas in the Caspian region, it supplies raw materials to China, Russia and Iran. Among the discussed projects are additional pipelines to Russia (Caspian - via Kazakhstan), Europe (Nabucco, through the Caspian Sea via Azerbaijan) and India (Trans-Afghan via Pakistan).
Turkmengaz carries out the following activities: development of gas and gas condensate fields; production of gas and gas condensate; processing natural gas; transportation of gas, gas condensate and liquefied natural gas; sale of gas and its products for export and inside the country; drilling of development wells in the eastern part of the country; development of new forms of mutually beneficial international economic relations.
Under another presidential decree, Tachberdi Tagiyev who previously headed a refinery in the city of Seydi (eastern Turkmenistan) has been appointed head of Turkmenbashi oil refinery. In recent years, oil refinery in Turkmenbashi was reconstructed to the amount of $1.6 billion by investment of a number of banks in Europe and Asia. Companies of Japan, Turkey, France, Germany, Israel, Iran and others carried out contract work. Similar modernization will be carried out at Seidi refinery; the international tender has been recently summed up.