Gulfsands Provides an Operational Updates in Morocco

Gulfsands Petroleum plc, the oil and gas production, exploration and development company with activities in Syria, Morocco, Tunisia, Colombia and the U.S.A. provides the following update on its recent activities.

· 3D data on Rharb permit being processed - final volume to be delivered in early March
· Fourth well location on Rharb permit to be selected with benefit of quality 3D seismic - drilling anticipated to commence in late March / early April
· Rig selection process under way for drilling on Fes licence - drilling target to be identified in Q3 with drilling anticipated for Q4
· 2D seismic programme in preparation for Chorbane permit in Tunisia
· Colombia Joint Venture making progress ahead of 2D seismic programmes in late 2014/early 2015
· Khurbet East and Yousefieh assets in Syria closed in and secure

Morocco Operations:
Rharb Permits
Acquisition of the 225 square kilometre 3D seismic survey, covering the prospective south-western portion of the Rharb permit was completed in October 2013. The data acquired in that programme is currently undergoing processing by CGG-Veritas. A fast-track preliminary volume of the processed 3D data has been delivered and is being used for basic analyses and lead identification in the area covered by the new survey.

The final volume of processed data is anticipated to be delivered in early March 2014 enabling the selection of future drilling locations in this area of the Rharb permits utilising the new 3D data rather than the 2D data which was of lesser quality but was the only previously available seismic data over the Rharb permits. It is anticipated that the next well to be drilled, which will be the fourth well in the current programme, can be selected with the benefit of the 3D data acquired in the recent seismic programme.

As contemplated by the Company's drilling contract with COFOR, the drilling contractor, it is anticipated that drilling operations on the fourth well in the Company's Rharb drilling programme will commence in late March or early April although the exact timing of the commencement of operations is dependent upon a number of factors including local weather conditions which currently restrict access to some areas of the permit. A further announcement will be made when drilling operations commence.

Fes Permit
The 650 km 2D seismic programme within the Fes permit is nearing completion. As a consequence of weather disruption to the data acquisition programme, this programme has taken significantly longer than originally anticipated and therefore there will be some delay in completing the processing of data for use in interpretation and identification of drilling targets.

As the Fes area is known to be structurally complex, prior to the Company's receipt of the data, it will undergo a number of additional and more sophisticated processes than would usually be the case, including depth migration processing. Notwithstanding the additional time and cost involved in applying these sophisticated processing techniques, it is anticipated that the resulting data set will be significantly enhanced and assist with the interpretation of the data captured during this programme in order to develop the leads into drillable prospects.

It is anticipated that a drilling target will be identified during the 3rd quarter of this year and accordingly the Company has commenced a process to identify and select a suitable rig for drilling on the Fes licence later this year.

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