MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - Turkmenistan's president announced on Monday that the former Soviet republic would increase oil and gas production.

Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said in a meeting with energy officials that Turkmenistan would increase gas production from some 80 billion cubic meters a year to 250 billion and oil from 10 million tons to 100 million tons.

He did not mention a timescale for the increase.

The president's announcement came shortly after he had dismissed a number of leading gas and oil officials over, among other things, a failure to boost production.

In a September meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Berdymukhamedov said the energy-rich Central Asian country was seeking to diversify its supplies to global markets and that Turkmenistan was ready to cooperate with U.S. companies in the development of oil-and-gas fields in the Caspian Sea.