Myratgeldi Meredov

Myratgeldi Meredov is a Turkmen political figure and mining engineer. He served as Cabinet of Ministers (Turkmenistan) for oil and gas of Turkmenistan from 2018 to 2021.
==Biography==
===Education and early career===
This section is translated from the Russian Wikipedia article at :ru:Мередов, Мыратгелди Ресулович with some additions from his official biography.
Meredov was born in 1977 in Ashgabat. Beginning in 1994 he worked as a laboratory technician at the Turkmen State Institute of Architecture and Construction.
In 2000 he graduated from the Turkmen Polytechnic Institute as a mining engineer, and in 2015 from the Academy of Government Service. Upon graduation from the polytechnic institute he worked at the Institute of Oil and Gas of Turkmengas state corporation in various jobs. From 2013 to 2014 he was head of the geology sector in the Division of Oil and Gas Industry of the Cabinet of Ministers (Turkmenistan). From 2014 to 2016 he was deputy minister of oil and gas industry and mineral resources. From January to July 2016 he was minister of oil and gas and chairman of the council of the State Commission on Reserves of Natural Resources of the Cabinet of Ministers. From July 2016 to July 2017 he was chairman of Turkmennebitgasgurluşyk Turkmen Oil and Gas Construction state company. From July to December 2017 he was acting head of Ýöriteleşdirilen gurluşyk-gurnama önümçilik Specialized Construction-Installation Production state company of Turkmengas. From December 2017 to April 2018 he was head of the Cabinet of Ministers Division for Control of Construction of Especially Important and Capital Objects of the Oil and Gas Sector.
===Cabinet of Ministers===
Meredov was appointed deputy prime minister for oil and gas on 11 April 2018. During his term of office, Meredov oversaw the opening of a new natural gas engineering school in the city of Mary, Turkmenistan|Mary, extended for eight years Turkmenistan's contract with Tatneft, and opened a plant for producing synthetic gasoline from natural gas. In October 2018 Meredov led a delegation from the oil and gas sector to Brussels to conduct formal talks with the European Union on the possibility of constructing a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline across the Caspian Sea. 
Over the term as a deputy prime minister Meredov received five public reprimands for poor work performance. A reprimand in 2019 was linked in the press to failure of the oil and gas sector to meet plan targets. In October 2020, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow provided specifics that were published in state media, to the effect that "growth is not observed in oil extraction, half of which is exported. Processing enterprises do not operate at the appropriate level, and for a long time are used at barely 40%."
Meredov was fired 10 February 2021 for "serious deficiencies committed at work". Opposition media speculated that Meredov's deficiencies were related to instructions President Berdimuhamedow issued to his successor, to "implement new technologies in production, more actively collaborate with international companies in work in gas fields, attract foreign investment in drilling new wells and extraction of residual and hard-to-reach oil reserves...accelerate the pace of construction of the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India Pipeline and seek opportunities for entry into new markets for sales of gas and oil."
Category:1977 births
Category:Turkmenistan political people
Category:Mining engineers