Farman Kurbanovich Salmanov

Farman Kurbanovich Salmanov was a Soviet and Russian oil geologist, one of the discoverers of Siberian oil. He was born in 1931 in the village of Morul, Azerbaijan SSR. He graduated from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute in 1954 with a specialty as a mining engineer-geologist.

After graduating from the institute, Salmanov was sent to Kuzbass. Concluding that there were no significant oil reserves there, he independently moved his geological exploration party to Surgut. On 21 March 1961 the first well in the Megion area produced an oil gusher. This discovery marked the beginning of large-scale oil production in Western Siberia.

For more than thirty years Salmanov devoted himself to work in Western Siberia and participated in the discovery of more than 150 oil and gas fields. In 1987 Salmanov was appointed first deputy minister of geology of the USSR in Moscow. After the collapse of the Soviet Union he continued a successful career in the private sector, holding leadership positions in major oil and gas companies such as ZAO "Rospan International", NGK "ITERA" and "Yugneftegaz". Salmanov continued research activities even in retirement and was involved in searching for oil and gas in Kalmykia. Farman Kurbanovich Salmanov passed away in Moscow on 31 March 2007.