Oil & Gas — Downstream to Upstream
Erkan Pehlivan
Chief Executive Officer of K‑Neft Kyrgyz–Turk — a career spent turning fuel logistics, refineries and oil fields into businesses that actually run, from a regional desk in Adana to a Turkish–Kyrgyz energy venture in the Fergana Valley.
The profile
He learned the energy business from the bottom, and has sat on a board or run a company without interruption since 2007.
Erkan Pehlivan was born in Adana in 1976 and studied Business Administration at Cukurova University's Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. He grew up on handball courts and in the scouting movement, at national and international camps where organisation, discipline and the mechanics of a team stopped being abstract.
Three years in banking at Yapi Kredi, under the Cukurova Group, taught him corporate rhythm and how money moves through a large institution. Then came two decades in energy — mineral oils at Prista Oil, fuel retail at OPET, petrochemicals and distribution at Staroil — carrying him from a regional manager's territory to a seat on the board and the general manager's office.
Since 2020 the work has been in the Kyrgyz Republic: first on the board, then as chief executive of the K‑NPZ Kadamjai Refinery, and now at the head of K‑Neft Kyrgyz–Turk, the company developing oil and gas in the Batken region. He moved his family from Istanbul to Osh to be where the fields are.
He credits three rules his father gave him, and still runs his meetings by them: be honest, be compassionate, keep clear of arrogance.
The track record
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1998–2001
Yapi Kredi Bank
Banking operations — Cukurova Group
The first three years of working life: corporate rhythm, credit, and how money actually moves through a large institution.
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2001–2004
Prista Oil Holding
Regional Manager — Cukurova, Southern & South‑Eastern Anatolia
Carried responsibility for Turkey's largest mineral‑oil production plant, in Izmit, with an 86,000‑tonne capacity.
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2004–2007
OPET
Regional Manager — Central Anatolia
Central‑region management for one of Turkey's leading fuel retailers, alongside its education, health, environment and culture programmes.
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2007–2015
Staroil
Board Member & General Manager
Eight years building the network to roughly 450 stations and 7,000 distribution points in Turkey, with trade reaching 20 countries.
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2015–2020
CPM Project Management — Istanbul
Board Member — construction & project management
A deliberate step outside energy: four residential developments in Mersin, completed over four years.
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2020–2021
Arsan Group
Vice General Manager
A transitional year before the Central Asia work became full‑time.
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2020–2025
K‑NPZ Kadamjai Refinery — Kyrgyzstan
Board Member, then Chief Executive Officer (from 2022)
Ran the refinery as a business and led its expansion from processing into upstream exploration and production.
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2023 — present
K‑Neft Kyrgyz–Turk
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Upstream oil and gas in Batken — well rehabilitation, primary treatment, storage and pipeline. Part of Gelecek Investment Holding.
What he runs
Downstream & fuel retail
Station networks, distribution contracts, depot and haulage logistics at national scale.
Refining operations
Running a refinery to a profit‑and‑loss statement, not just a throughput target.
Upstream development
Well rehabilitation, phased field development, geological survey and primary treatment.
Cross‑border ventures
Structuring Turkish–Kyrgyz partnerships and working alongside state operators.
Board & P&L leadership
General‑manager and board roles, held without interruption since 2007.
Government & community relations
Licences, ministries, and the towns a field actually sits in.
The Batken chapter
A refinery job that became a country's upstream programme.
On 23 March 2023, K‑Neft signed a partnership with Kyrgyztransneftegaz, the state operator, covering the exploration, extraction and operation of oil and gas across a licence area of some 55 million square metres in the Batken region — 187 wells, under a licence that runs to 2042. It followed two and a half years of near‑constant travel.
Pehlivan founded K‑Neft Kyrgyz–Turk to carry the work: reactivating drilled wells, primary treatment, and the storage and pipeline that domestic supply depends on. He made the move from Istanbul to Osh with his wife, Yuliia, and their sons, Efe and Alexandre — a real family decision, not a posting.
How he works
Three rules, inherited from his father, that people who deal with him tend to notice before the numbers.
Be honest
Deals that still hold up years later are the only kind worth signing — the Batken licence is written to 2042 for a reason.
Be compassionate
A payroll is people. Creating jobs across Turkey and the Turkic republics has been a through‑line of his career, not a by‑product of it.
Avoid arrogance
He learned what a team is in scout camps and on handball courts, long before any org chart — and runs one the same way.
A businessman known for creating jobs across Turkey and the Turkic republics, for backing investment where others hesitated, and for an optimism his colleagues have learned to rely on.— Diplomat magazine (Turkey), “Good That You're Here, Erkan Pehlivan,” 6 December 2023
Contact
Open to partnerships in energy and Central Asia.
- Founder & CEO, K‑Neft Kyrgyz–Turk
- Former CEO, K‑NPZ Kadamjai Refinery
- Congress Member, Fenerbahce SK
- Profiled by Diplomat magazine, 2023