OREANDA-NEWS. November 17, 2009. Irshat Garayev, an electric welder of the formation pressure maintenance workshop No.1 of OAO TATNEFT 's NGDU Jalilneft was awarded an honorary title the "Best welder of Russia in 2009" as a result of the welding masters contest, which was held in the framework of a regular International Welding Forum in Ufa, reported the press-centre of TATNEFT.

The welders' contest was arranged by the National Agency for the control and welding of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor). Irshat Garaev successfully passed through all stages of the contest and ranked number one showing excellent results in the nomination of manual arc welding.

The picked team of TATNEFT traditionally takes an active part in this contest. Albert Zaymanov, who is also an employee of TATNEFT, used to win and keep the title of the best welder in Russia for three years in a row in the past years competitions. This year he has had to yield precedence to his colleague.

Such high professional skills of TATNEFT's workers are promoted by the constant attention of the Company to improving the professionalism level of the employees and especially the one of the young people. The annual professional skills contest has been arranged in TATNEFT among the workers of the major oil trades for more than 30 years. Only young workers participated in this prestigious corporate competition in recent years. The schools of production management have been established and operate in the executive apparatus and at the Company's divisions, where the leading experts of the Company share their knowledge and experience with young engineers. Open scientific/practical conferences are annually arranged under the auspices of the Youth Committee and the Board of Young Professionals. These and other similar activities are intended to ensure high competitiveness of TATNEFT in the modern market conditions and lay the foundation for the Company's future development.