Director's Dealings

Gulfsands Petroleum PLC
28 July 2006

Gulfsands Petroleum plc
('Gulfsands' or 'the Company')

Directors' purchase 3,508,750 shares in Gulfsands Petroleum

Directors' ownership increases to 22.25% of issued share capital

Gulfsands adopts plan to exercise outstanding share options in an orderly manner


Gulfsands Petroleum plc (symbol GPX), the AIM listed oil and gas exploration,
development and production company with activities in the USA, Syria and Iraq
announces that it has today received notification from various directors of the
Company (as set out in the table below) for the exercise of options (the 
'Exercise') over 3,893,750 ordinary shares of 5.714p each in the Company 
('Ordinary Shares') due to expire on 2 August 2006.

The Company received $890,000 in proceeds from the directors resulting from the
Exercise and  subsequently two directors (as set out below) sold 385,000 new
Ordinary Shares to cover certain tax liabilities which fall due in the current
quarter as a result of the Exercise.  As a consequence the directors purchased a
net 3,508,750 Ordinary Shares.

Following the Exercise there remains a total of 10,077,500 options outstanding
over Ordinary Shares, with expiry dates between 1 January 2008 and 24 July 2011
(further details of which are set out in the Company's Report & Accounts which
were recently circulated to shareholders and are available on the Company's
website - www.gulfsands.net). However, of this amount 7,262,500 of these options
were granted to directors over the 8-year period the Company was privately held
previous to its admission to AIM in 2005.  Given this quantum of options is
large, the Board of Gulfsands intends to adopt a systematic plan, in conjunction
with its broker Teather & Greenwood Limited, to enable the exercise and
subsequent sale of sufficient Ordinary Shares to meet option exercise costs and
tax liabilities in an orderly and carefully considered manner.

Details of the Exercise and the resultant shareholdings are as follows:


Director                 Number of        Date of   Exercise Price        Ordinary   Total Ordinary Ordinary Shares
                         options over       Grant                      Shares sold     Shares under  held following
                         Ordinary                                      at 95p each option following    the Exercise
                         Shares                                                        the Exercise
                         exercised                                     

John Dorrier                  1,487,500  2 Aug 2001         $0.229         245,000        3,825,000     8,883,750 /
                                                                                                              9.12%
                                                                           

David DeCort                    875,000  2 Aug 2001         $0.229         140,000        2,768,750     4,285,625 /
                                                                                                               4.4%
                                                                           

Nordman Continental S.A.      1,312,500  2 Aug 2001         $0.229               0        1,893,750     8,056,875 /
*                                                                                                             8.27%
                                                                                 

David Cowan                     218,750  2 Aug 2001         $0.229               0          300,000   437,500 / 0.45%

                                                                                 

Total                         3,893,750                                    385,000        8,787,500    21,663,750 /
                                                                                                             22.25%



* Nordman Continental S.A. is owned by a discretionary trust whereby Mahdi
Sajjad's children are potential beneficiaries under the trust.



The new Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary share
capital of the Company and have been allotted and issued credited as fully paid.
Application has been made for the 3,893,750 new Ordinary Shares to be admitted
to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence on or around 2 August
2006.

Following admission, the total issued share capital of the Company has increased
to 97,375,000 Ordinary Shares.



Enquiries:


Gulfsands Petroleum (Houston)                                001-713-626-9564
David DeCort, Chief Financial Officer

College Hill (London)                                        020-7457-2020
Nick Elwes
Paddy Blewer

Teather & Greenwood (London)                                 020-7426-9000
James Maxwell (Corporate Finance)
Tanya Clarke (Specialist Sales)



Note to Editors

•         Gulf of Mexico, USA

The Company owns interests in 64 offshore blocks comprising approximately
216,000 gross acres which includes 39 producing oil and gas fields offshore
Texas and Louisiana with proved and probable recoverable reserves of 32.4 BCFGE,
consisting of 19.8 BCFG and 2.1 MMBO as of 1 January 2006 with a net present
value of $183 million.  Additionally, there is a further 2.8 BCFGE of possible
recoverable reserves with a net present value of $15.8 million.

•         Syria

In Syria, Gulfsands owns a 50% working interest in Block 26 and is the operator.
The block covers 11,000 square kilometres and surrounds areas which currently
produce over 100,000 barrels of oil per day from existing fields.  In January
2006 the Company completed the acquisition of 1,155 kilometers of 2D seismic and
anticipates drilling two wells during 2006.  The first well, known as Souedieh
North, commenced drilling in late April 2006 and was temporarily suspended in
June for further analysis.  The second well known as Tigris is scheduled to spud
in late August of 2006 and has the potential to contain in excess of 500 MMBOE.
Gulfsands has identified 31 total exploitation and exploration prospects within
Block 26 with mean resources potential exceeding 1 billion barrels of
recoverable oil.

Ryder Scott completed a reserves study on the Tigris structure in 2006 and these
reserves were classified as either oil or gas bearing until such time as the
Company drills and tests the Tigris structure.  As of 1 July 2006 Ryder Scott
determined that the Probable Reserves net to Gulfsands after applying the terms
of the Production Sharing Contract is 102 BCFG with a net present value
discounted at 10% of $233 million.  For primarily a natural gas accumulation, an
additional 75 BCFG of possible reserves net to Gulfsands were estimated to have
a 10% discounted net present value of $261 million.  Furthermore, the Company
completed its own economic evaluation on the Prospective Gas Resource and has
estimated that Prospective Gas Resource net to Gulfsands is 577 BCFG with a net
present value of approximately $1.06 billion.  In summary total gas reserves
potential net to Gulfsands among Probable and Possible Reserves for the natural
gas case is 177 BCFG (30 MMBOE) with a net present value of $494 million and
when combined with the Prospective Gas Resource it totals 754 BCFG (126 MMBOE)
with a net present value of approximately $1.55 billion.

For primarily an oil accumulation, Ryder Scott determined the Possible Reserves
net to Gulfsands after applying the terms of the Production Sharing Contract are
19.4 million barrels of oil having a net present value discounted at 10% of $452
million.  Furthermore, the Company completed its own economic evaluation on the
Prospective Oil Resource and has estimated that Prospective Oil Resource net to
Gulfsands is 50.9 MMBO with a net present value of approximately $1.51 billion.
In summary total oil reserves potential net to Gulfsands among Possible and
Prospective Oil Resource for the oil case is 70.3 MMBO with a net present value
of approximately $1.96 billion.

•         Iraq

Gulfsands signed a Memorandum of Understanding in January 2005 with the Ministry
of Oil in Iraq for the Misan Gas Project in Southern Iraq and is currently
negotiating the definitive contract for the project.  The project will gather,
process and transmit natural gas that is currently a waste by-product of oil
production in the region and will end the environmentally damaging practice of
gas flaring. Gulfsands has completed a feasibility study and expects to conduct
further technical work and commercial discussions with the Iraq Oil Ministry.

•         Onshore USA

Gulfsands operates onshore in the USA through its 83% owned subsidiary company
Darcy Energy LLC.  As of 1 January 2006, Darcy Energy owned interests in two oil
and gas fields onshore Texas, USA (Emily Hawes and Barb Mag) with proved and
probable recoverable reserves of 1.6 BCFGE, consisting of 1.2 BCFG and 58,000
barrels of oil with a net present value of $9.5 million.  Additionally, there is
a further 2.2 BCFGE of possible recoverable reserves with a net present value of
$7.9 million.




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