Foreword

The Orange Disc focuses on Gulf's expanding promise. It's a great pleasure to be part of the Gulf family during these exciting times. Rapid changes are taking place in technology, the environment and the market place. Gulf has accelerated its growth by expanding its markets and product portfolio, supported with innovative market offerings.

2007 has been another pivotal year for Gulf Oil International. We have seen a further expansion of the Gulf group around the world as the Gulf brand continues to attract the interest of entrepreneurial oil and petroleum distributors.

Gulf's stakeholders have continued to invest heavily, in order to realise their vision for the brand, and the Gulf Oil International Group was delighted to announce, on the 12th November, the successful acquisition of the Petromin brand in Saudi Arabia. Together with our joint venture partners, the Dabbagh Group, Gulf was selected from amongst many bidders as the preferred purchaser. This dramatic step propels the Gulf brand, with the Petromin brand, to market leaders in Saudi Arabia. This development follows the 100% acquisition of all operations in Dubai to strengthen the Gulf brand's position in the Middle East & Africa and the new plant built at the end of last year in Yantai Province, China.

The inspirational opportunity of acquiring the Petromin brand does not come along every day, so when it presented itself, all the Gulf stakeholders made a huge effort and courageous decisions were made to achieve the goal. It is yet another dramatic demonstration of the power and strength of the Gulf brand. Following this success, Gulf is now concentrating on another possibility for a major acquisition in Europe. All opportunities to develop the brand, its market coverage and strength, are carefully examined as they occur. Added to this, there are immensely exciting marketing developments in the pipeline - including in Gulf's motor sport program - that follow on from the success of the Gulf brand in Endurance racing in 2007. With new distributors joining the ranks of Gulf every month more and more parts of the world are being painted "Blue and Orange", especially in Europe and Latin America.

Every week Gulf is approached with new requests from businesses eager to extend the Gulf brand and to build on its lifestyle status. 2007 has seen a significant development in Service Stations and Lubricants licensees, Gulf products were introduced in Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Venezuela, with other countries due to join the Gulf family soon. 

While introducing Gulf products in new markets we need to keep in mind that today's world is dominated by technology and knowledge. Technology, leadership and effective knowledge management are becoming more and more important for sustained growth. In order to meet fast changing market requirements, the Global Technology Group of Gulf has undertaken the revision of the Global Product Portfolio and expanded OEM approvals/endorsements, having considered the valuable input received from all our business associates during the 2004 and 2006 conventions.

2008 is, therefore, certain to be another important year for Gulf and all whose businesses revolve around the brand and I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a healthy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.