Golar LNG announced that Mr. Gary Smith is resigning from his position as Chief Executive and Mr. Oscar Spieler who has been responsible for the development of the Hilli project will be appointed to replace Gary as CEO. Mr. Smith who was also Golar's CEO between March 2006 and July 2009 was re-hired as a consultant in 2014 to assist Golar in developing the LNG shipping business. He was promoted to Chief Executive in January 2015.

Mr. Smith has an excellent standing within the LNG industry and has contributed positively in the process of developing Golar into a mid-stream LNG player. Mr. Spieler was also the company's chief executive between July 2009 and June 2011. Educated as a naval architect, Mr. Spieler has strong leadership skills and a long track record of successfully delivering advanced off shore and shipping related projects.

Mr. Spieler has work experience from Bergesen, DNV and 16 years in the John Fredriksen controlled Seatankers Group where he had several functions including Chief Executive of Frontline, Golar, Sea Production and Sea Lift. Doug Arnell who was CEO of Golar until January 2015 remains as a senior advisor to the Company and will assist Mr. Spieler to ensure strong leadership of Golar's commercial activities. Mr. Arnell has a significant background in LNG commercial activities through his leadership roles at companies including Enron and BG Group in addition to Golar.

Most recently he was instrumental in the successful development and structuring of the Cameroon FLNG Export Project. The board has engaged Krzysztof Zielicki to structure the cooperation with Schlumberger. Mr. Zielicki was formerly Global Head of M&A and Strategy at Rosneft.

He has a degree in quantum mechanics from the University of London and holds several post graduate diplomas. Prior to his involvement in Rosneft he spent 25 years in BP and was also Vice President of Development at TNK-BP. He has been involved in leading over $150 billion of acquisitions, joint ventures and divestments.

Coming from Rosneft with production of nearly 5 million barrels equivalent per day, Mr. Zielicki adds significant upstream experience to the Golar team. Eduardo Antonello will take responsibility for structuring and developing Golar Power and has been developing the Sergipe project from inception. Mr. Antonello was educated as a mechanical engineer and has previously worked for Cargill, Schlumberger and Seadrill.

At Seadrill he was responsible for establishing the company's Brazilian activities and developing an organisation that operated 7 ultra-deepwater rigs. During this period Mr. Antonello also developed a JV with SapuraKencana and contracted 6 pipe laying vessels with Petrobras. Mr. Antonello is currently a partner in Magni Partners, a business partnership founded by Tor Olav Troim.