UAE based Oil & Gas Fabrication Specialists Maritime Industrial Services Co. Ltd. Inc (OSE: MIS) undertook the naming ceremony today of the very first offshore jack-up drilling rig to be built in the Middle East region, SeaWolf Oritsetimeyin . The ceremony was held under the auspices and attendance of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qassimi, Deputy Ruler of Sharjah and Chairman of Sharjah Petroleum Council, His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qassimi, Deputy Chairman of Sharjah Petroleum Council and His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Abdullah Al Qassimi, Chairman of the Sharjah Seaports and Customs Department among many others.

“Maritime Industrial Services is very proud of its achievement in building the very first jack-up drilling rig not only in the United Arab Emirates, but the Middle East as a whole. MIS is pleased to demonstrate its capabilities and resources here in the Middle East to supply them to the rest of the world and not just to the region itself. This demonstrates that the Middle East is not just a source of oil wealth, it is also a source of oil and gas engineering and excellence” said Jerry Smith, Managing Director of MIS.

“We are clearly pleased that MIS has justified our confidence by meeting and in fact exceeding its commitments to SeaWolf. MIS’s timely delivery, to specifications and cost control, are testament to our confidence – and allows us to meet our commitments to our investors” said Adolor Uwamu, Chief Executive Officer of SeaWolf Oilfield Services Limited, Nigeria.

MIS, with its 200,000 m² yard space capacity in Sharjah, has used the capacity-shortage in traditional New Build yards in Singapore, China and the US Gulf Coast to position itself amongst the world’s most efficient builders of jack-ups. This places MIS as the first yard in the Middle East to join the ranks of the world’s New Build yards for major offshore jack-up drilling rigs and is in line with MIS’s corporate strategy of managing a diverse and balanced business portfolio: focusing on the New Build business line while maintaining its core strengths in traditional business.

SeaWolf Oritsetimeyin, originally contracted by Norwegian Mosvold Jackup Ltd. in 2006, is the first of two offshore jack-up drilling rigs being built by MIS for SeaWolf Oilfield Services Limited, a Nigerian drilling company, in a contract worth US$254mn. The rig, scheduled for delivery on August 30th 2008, is a Friede and Goldman Super Mod 2 design with 30,000 foot rated drilling depth and an operating water depth capability of 300 feet (92 meters). SeaWolf Onome, SeaWolf’s second jack up rig under MIS’s construction, is the same specification as SeaWolf Oritsetimeyin and is on time and scheduled for delivery to SeaWolf in December 2008.

In August 2007, MIS was also awarded a contract for the construction of an additional jack-up drilling rig – Hull 107 - for the recently established joint venture company, KSAM2Petrodrill Offshore, led by Singapore-based KS Energy Services Ltd. Hull 107 is scheduled for delivery in February 2010. The construction of Hull 107 has already started and the keel was laid on January 13th, ahead of schedule, in the space in MIS’s shipyard that was vacated by the SeaWolf Oritsetimeyin.