Aziz Karaman, co-founder of the TBS Petrol and President of Ceka Energy Llc., has been in the oil and gas industry for 35 years. He began his professional career in 1973 with TPAO as a field engineer and worked in a number of seismic crew operations in Turkey as Party Chief and District Geophysicist. Joining Arrow Research Oil and Gas Inc. in Norman, Oklahoma in 1979 as Senior Geophysicist, he was involved with the generation of new prospects in Central Oklahoma and mid-Continent. Later, he moved to TPIC Egypt, as Chief Geophysicist responsible for country and project evaluations in the Caspian, North Africa and Middle East Regions. Appointed as Exploration Manager in 1991, he supplied technical and administrative supervision for three different concessions (Western Desert - Bahariya, West Qarun and Gulf of Suez- Gebel El Zeit) and led the Technical Interpretation and Commercial Negotiation teams to discuss and negotiate with EGPC and other government authorities.

From 1993 to 1998, Aziz Karaman worked for Amoco Eurasia Petroleum Company as Senior Geophysical Associate, shifting his focus on Caspian Basin Evaluation. He took part in several field development projects in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, with evaluation responsabilities in Apsheron and Kashagan fields. Later, assigned to Amoco Development Company as Business Development Manager and Upstream Country Representative, he managed all of the business development activities of Amoco in Turkey from 1998 to 2000 and greatly contributed to the success of several important projects including BTC Pipeline and Amoco Egypt Gas Export to Turkey. In 2000, he was appointed as Business Development Manager of BP-Amoco in charge of the Upstream, Gas & Power Group, where he developed gas market strategy for Turkey and Caspian regions and spearheaded development of Shahdeniz gas field export.

Aziz Karaman joined Calik Energy in 2002 as Director of the Oil & Gas Division and he managed the company’s upstream and midstream projects in Caspian, Turkmenistan, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq for the next 5 years. Founding Seana Energy in March 2007, he served as Chief Manager responsible for oil and gas E&P and field development projects in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Since December 2008, he has been giving advisory support on oil and gas E&P projects to domestic and international energy companies under Ceka Energy.

Aziz Karaman obtained his B.Sc. degree from the University of Istanbul, in 1973 and M.Sc. degree from the University of Tulsa, in 1981, both in Geophysics.