Appointment of Richard Malcolm as Chief Executive Officer

Richard (Ric) John Malcolm, 56, is currently the Managing Director of OMV (U.K.) Limited, the UK E&P subsidiary of OMV AG, Austria's largest listed company and one of Europe's leading oil and gas companies.

Mr. Malcolm is a professional petroleum geologist and has spent 29 years in the oil industry, serving the past 9 years at OMV in developing OMV's assets predominantly in the North Sea, Libya, Australia and New Zealand.

Mr. Malcolm's career in the oil industry started in 1980 as a petroleum geologist for Woodside Offshore Petroleum, the Australian independent oil and gas intermediate where his work focused on oil and gas exploration on the Northwest Shelf of Western Australia for over 7 years. Following Woodside, Mr. Malcolm joined Ampolex Limited, a listed oil and gas exploration and production company. His roles included senior geologist and Exploration Manager in Western Australia and later Exploration/ Team Leader for Northern and Eastern Australia. Following Mobil's takeover of Ampolex Limited in 1997, Mr. Malcolm assumed the role of Team Leader/ Country Manager for Mobil's interests in Papua New Guinea.

Mr. Malcolm joined OMV in 1999 as head of exploration in Australia and New Zealand and during his tenure at OMV oversaw OMV's entry into new licences through farm-ins and acquisitions in Australia, New Zealand and Norway as well as managing OMV's exploration interests in Libya.

Mr. Malcolm was then appointed as Managing Director of OMV (U.K.) Limited in July 2006 and has continued in that role until the present during which time he has overseen OMV (U.K.)'s growth and evolution in operated exploration activities in the Central North Sea (CNS) in addition to OMV (U.K.)'s participation in the appraisal of the Jackdaw gas/ condensate discovery in the CNS and appraisal of the Rosebank oil discovery, West of Shetland Islands.

The appointment of Mr. Malcolm is anticipated to take effect not later than end October of this year following the completion of formalities associated with his present employment arrangements.

Upon taking up his position and as a part of his compensation arrangements, Mr. Malcolm will be granted 1,500,000 options to subscribe for ordinary shares in the Company. In accordance with the Company's Executive Share Option Scheme, the exercise price of the options will be 186 pence per share, being the average of the mid-market closing prices of the Company's shares over the five trading days prior to the date of this announcement. The options will vest in three tranches, being 750,000 on the date of his appointment and 375,000 on each of the first and second anniversaries of his appointment

Gulfsands' Chairman, Andrew West, said: "The Board welcomes Ric at a crucial moment in the evolution of Gulfsands Petroleum, just as we are about to commence commercial production in Syria. His appointment means that we now have a complete and eminently qualified senior management team to drive Gulfsands to the next stage of its development. I much look forward to working with Ric and the Company's other senior executives to build a substantial quoted independent oil and gas company."