Kemal Lokman

Kemal Lokman is described as the first petroleum engineer of Turkey. Born in 1899 in Kazalinsk, then in the Russian Empire, into a Tatar family, he was sent by the Turkish government to study oil engineering in Europe, at the Polytechnic Institute in Grenoble and then at the national petroleum school in Strasbourg. He came to Turkey in 1929 and worked in the state mineral research and exploration institute, where he took a direct part in the survey work and the discovery of the Raman and Garzan fields. In 1957 he became head of the Turkish Petroleum Administration, and in 1970 he was the founder and first chairman of the Chamber of Petroleum Engineers within the Turkish engineers and architects union. He also helped Turkic emigrants from the Volga and Central Asia, and died in Tashkent in 1976 while visiting relatives. He is included here as a founder of the Turkish oil industry.