Petrocouncil.kz presents the 2nd Annual Review of the ‘TOP 20 Kazakhstanis’ working abroad in senior positions in the oil and gas industry 2022.
The Review includes 20 Kazakhstanis working in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. This Overview demonstrates that over the years of Kazakh independence, a number of Kazakhstanis have achieved high positions in international oil and gas projects and transnational companies. These are all the merits of the Independence of Kazakhstan, as well as the investments of large companies – O&G TNCs in the country and the development of such fields as Tengiz, Kashagan, Karachaganak and Dunga.
Kazakhstani national have gained vast experience in these projects and now they are working in senior positions abroad on oil and gas projects, as well as in large oil and gas TNCs.
Petrocouncil.kz congratulates those included in the Review and wishes them further career development in international oil and gas projects and in TNCs.
Here, the names of 20 Kazakhstanis included in this Review:
Mansur Zhakupov
VP Hydrogen, TotalEnergies, France
Mansur graduated from Moscow State Technical University as well as Texas A&M university. He also studied in France in Ecole Polytechnique, IFP school and HEC Paris. In TotalEnergies he works more than 19 years where he started in petroleum and reservoir engineering. Mansur was country manager of TotalEnergies in Tunisia and Australia. Currently, he serves as VP Hydrogen, Paris, France.
Madina Crabb
VP Finance Shell, Qatar
VP Finance at Shell Qatar since 2020. He has over 20 years of experience in the industry, international projects, board members and steering committees.
Zamira Kanapyanova
General Manager, Government & Public Affairs in Europe, Eurasia, Exploration & Production in the Middle East, Chevron, UK
Zamira is General Manager of Chevron Government and Public Affairs in Europe, Eurasia, Exploration and Production in the Middle East. Zamira has been with Chevron for over 26 years.
Aliya Kayupova
VP, Exxon, Sakhalin, Russia
Aliya has been working in Sakhalin since April 2021 as ExxonMobil’s Sakhalin-1 vice president for government and public relations. She has been with Exxon for over 10 years. Prior to that, she worked at Exxon in Houston, USA.
Mukhamed Raziyev
Director of Corporate Strategy for Russia, Central Asia and Caspian Countries, Schlumberger, Russia
Mukhamed works for Schlumberger for more 18 years. He graduated from Middle East Technical University, Turkey; Heriot-Watt University UK and University of California at Berkley.
Mukhamed started to work as drilling engineer in Turkmenistan, in Siberia, Qatar. Then, he moved to Malaysia as senior well engineer and rose to operation manager for Malaysia, Philippines and Brunei. Later, he moved to Indonesia where he was appointed as business transformation manager for Far East Asia and Austrialia. Lately, he was appointed as managing director of Schlumberger for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgystan.
Tahir Azhibek
HSE Corporate manager, ADNOC, UAE
Tahir graduated from the State University, as well as the University of Manchester.
Career reader from Tengiz with Supervisor of the Higher School of Economics. Then for more than 9 years he worked in Schlumberger, where he rose to the position of a manager at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He has been working in the ADNOC system for more than 10 years.
Saken Umirshin
Drilling Services Product line director, North America, USA
Saken works 22 years in O&G industry, 19 years in Baker Hughes. He managed various businesses in Oilfield Services including Wireline logging, Upstream Chemicals, Pressure Pumping, Drilling Services across multiple regions globally. Most recently worked in Russia Federation and United States
Anel Bagitzhanova
Global Commercial Risk Director, Baker Hughes, UAE
Anel has joined GE in 2012 in Almaty, Kazakhstan and since then she held numerous positions in Unites States, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates. Currently, she manages a global commercial risk framework and strategy supporting the company in Energy Transition. Prior to this, she held the position of Finance Director for the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, and India region for the valves product line.
Anton Yugay
Northern Gulf Completions Country Manager, Halliburton, Kuwait
Anton oversees well completion operations in Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon. Anton graduated from KazNTU with honors in the “Oil and Gas Business”. At the university he served as president of the Student Section of SPE KazNTU. He started as a geologist at the Karachaganak, then became an engineer and coordinator, having worked on the Tengiz, Kashagan, Karachaganak, Chinarevskoye, Dunga fields.
Since 2014, he has held various senior positions in service companies, working in the well construction department, as well as in BD department. For most of the career, Anton contributed to the development of engineers and specialists. Twice held the position of CEO in joint ventures. Successfully completed various advanced training courses and business trainings in the USA and the UAE, currently based in Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Aidar Svyatov
Tengiz Business Unit Advisor, Chevron, USA
Aidar received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tulsa. Aidar has joined TCO in 2013 as a Petroleum Engineer in Atyrau. Over the years of experience, he held several positions with increase responsibility in Atyrau, Tengiz, and Houston in different roles covering Subsurface, Operations, and Emergency Management (COVID19) departments.
Almat Primbetov
Contract Administration Manager
Coral FSNG S.A.
Mozambique
Almat has 14 years of experience in oil and gas upstream industry, including 10 years in international onshore and offshore projects in Dubai, Iraq, Singapore, Ghana, Italy and Mozambique, including world class projects for construction, operation and maintenance of FPSO and FLNG units.
Yevgeniy Kvon
Reservoir & Petroleum engineering manager, ENI, Congo
Yevgeniy graduated from Atyrau University of Oil&Gas and Astrakhan State Technical University. He has been working more than 20 years for ENI where he started to work in Agip KCO as petroleum engineer. He worked in different locations in Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Croatia. Since 2020 Yevgeniy was appointed as Reservoir & Petroleum manager in ENI Congo, location Pointe-Noire.Talgat Yesniyazov
Commissioning & Start-up Lead, Petroleum Development Oman, Oman
Talgat studied in Atyrau University of Oil&Gas and ENI Corporate University.
Talgat is O&G industry professional in implementing project engineering, commissioning and start-ups, facility operations and production management over the Europe, Asia and Gulf Region.
He manages commissioning and start-up, production ramp-up and steady operation for multiple concurrent projects, including medium and large projects portfolio of Petroleum Development Oman.
Talgat started his career in Halliburton in Atyrau, then moved to work in Italy for ENI. In Kazakhstan he worked for NCOC and KMG. Since 2013 he works in Oman for Petroleum Development Oman.
Gaukhar Jalgassova
Finance partner at OQ, Oman
Gaukhar is a native of Atyrau. She graduated from KIMEP, Almaty and she has been working in international O&G industry since 2003, worked in service companies like Boskalis and Halliburton, operating companies in North Buzachi PSA, CMOC and NCOC.
In 2018 Gaukhar started working in Oman at international O&G company OQ in the upstream (formerly know as Oman Oil Company Exploration and Production). The company has projects in Kazakhstan, particularly it is one of the shareholders in Dunga PSA (20%) and it was a shareholder in Pearls PSA (20%).
Gaukhar also serves as branch manager of OQ SPVs in Kazakhstan: Oman Oil Company Limited and Oman Pearls Company Limited.
In OQ Gaukhar works as Principal Business Finance for Upstream JVs and BD. Her scope includes working with Upstream JV projects and jointly with operating companies such as Shell, Occidental (OXY), BP, ENI, Total energies and others.
Arsen Shnashev
Global Lithium battery safety manager, Shlumberger, UK
Arsen Shnashev is global Subject Matter Authority (SMA) for Lithium Battery services & equipment specific safety at Schlumberger in UK. He graduated from Middle East Technical University in Turkey, holds BSc in Industrial Engineering and MBA from Herriot-Watt University, Edinburg Business School. In charge of the Safety aspect of Lithium Battery used in company’s products & services delivery processes. Owner of end to end process to ensure that all aspects of safety, including end of life lithium recycling of industrial batteries is managed in safest and efficient way. Worked in Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Scotland, Turkmenistan, Angola, Saudi Arabia, and England in various roles like regional operations manager, technology life cycle management, quality compliance, asset manager, HSE, and field engineer
Daniyar Orzhanov
Head of production Telenga project Uganda, TotalEnergies, France
Daniyar is a graduate of RSFMSHI and KBTU, in 2007 he received a grant from TOTAL to study in France. After graduation, he was hired by TotalEnergies where he has been working to this day. Growing from production engineer to production department director, Daniyar Orzhanov worked on a project in Lac (France), at the offshore Zhirassol field in Angola, Al Khalij in Qatar and also worked at the HQ in Paris as a process engineer for acid gas processing and at the technical hub in Copenhagen of all Total offshore projects as a field engineer. Working on these projects, Daniyar gained invaluable experience in the operation and development of fields similar in their characteristics to Kazakhstan fields, for example, the Lac field in France had the same sulfur dioxide content as in Kashagan, and offshore drilling in Angola is similar in technological complexity to the Kashagan field and TCO. Daniyar is currently Director of Production at TotalEnergies at the Tilenga project in Uganda where he is preparing for the start of production in 2025 the first oil field in Uganda and the largest project in TotalEnergies.
Just as Daniyar’s grandfather Orzhanov Tabyn in the 1960s was one of the discoverers of the Dossor field in the West of Kazakhstan, Daniyar will be one of the discoverers of the oil industry in Uganda.
Assel Salimova
Wireline services director, Oilfield services, AP, BakerHughes, Malaysia
Assel is the Region PL Leader of Oilfield Services Wireline Services in Asia Pacific for Baker Hughes, based in KL, Malaysia. She started this position in February 2021 and is responsible for strengthening the Baker Hughes OFS business and ensuring execution across the Wireline Services product line in the region.
In her previous role, Assel was the Region Leader of OFS Reservoir Technical Services for APAC region driving growth and operational excellence, working with key customers and OFS product lines in APAC. Prior to this role Assel was leading OFS RTS in Russia Caspian region based in Moscow.
She has 14 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, having started her career in 2007 in field operations as a Wireline field engineer. She joined Baker Hughes in 2008 in the Geosciences and has since held various roles across geosciences and RTS business management across the RCIS and APAC regions.
She holds a bachelor and master’s degree in petroleum engineering from Kazakh-British Technical University.
Assel is an active member of the SPE organisation, holder of the SPE International awards and has held several positions with local chapter organizations in Kazakhstan and Russia. She is also a member of the BH Horizontal project across OFS and TPS product companies.
Alisher Yunuskhojayev
Managing Director, Corva AI, USA
Alisher is Managing Director of the Corporate Development group at Corva AI, an automation, digitalization company in the Energy Sector. Corva AI works with 85 world-renowned companies in E&P. Alisher worked in Management Consulting in 11 countries around the world, promoting portfolio optimization, operational efficiency and oil asset purchase and diversification transactions for clients in national companies, government agencies and investment banks.
Bakhyt Zupinov
Head of geology, North Oil Company Qatar
Bakhyt studied in Almaty Institute of Power and Telecommunication and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He started to work in Schlumberger as field engineer. Then Bakhyt worked in Maersk Oil both in Kazakhstan and Qatar. Since 2017 he works for North Oil company Qatar. Recently, he was promoted to head of geology.
North Oil Company is a joint-venture between Qatar Petroleum and Total to develop Al Shaheen oilfield. Al Shaheen is situated off the north east coast of Qatar and is one of the largest and most complex oil fields in the world. Its 100 million barrels per annum comprise 45% of Qatar’s oil production.
Turekul Zhangabylov,
Drilling advisor, QatarGas, Qatar
Turekul seconded to Qatargas via ExxonMobil Kazakhstan. He stewards digitization, automation, and drilling performance improvement project on large 10 + offshore rig campaign in Qatar. More than 12 years experience working on largest and complex international energy projects (Tengiz, Kashagan, Australia, PNG and largest offshore gas project – North Field in Qatar). Graduate of Bolashak Scholarship project with BSc degree with Distinction in Petroleum Engineering from University of Oklahoma (US