Press Release

Gulf Marine Services (LSE: GMS), the leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESV) serving the offshore oil, gas and renewable energy sectors, is pleased to announce a major new long-term contract award for one of its Large Class vessels.

The vessel will commence a four-year charter (three years firm with a one-year option) at the end of Q1 2015 on completion of its current assignment in the MENA region. The new charter is for a MENA-based national oil company (NOC) with a day rate in line with that previously indicated for the region for this class of vessel. The vessel will be supporting the client’s opex work in the area.

GMS has strong visibility on future earnings. This new charter award, taken together with the other contracts in place as at 1 January 2015, gives a secured backlog of $739 million as shown below.The Group’s entire fleet of SESVs is currently chartered, supporting brownfield oil and gas recovery, well services and maintenance work in the MENA region and in North West Europe.

Secured backlog consists of firm contracts and options held by clients. Over 90% of client-held options have been exercised in the period since 2007.

An updated schematic summary of the occupancy chart by vessel is available at http://www.gmsuae.com/investor-relations/results-and-presentations

Duncan Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of GMS, said:
“The signing of this new contract is testament to our long-standing partnerships with national oil companies in the Middle East. It also demonstrates that demand remains strong for our technically advanced, flexible and fast manoeuvring assets for brownfield oil and gas operations, which is very encouraging in the current low oil price environment. Our ability to adapt from our normal multi-move well intervention activity into supplying a large capacity accommodation barge from the same design validates and reinforces our strategy to keep our designs flexible and thus ensure market-leading utilisation. We will continue to focus our efforts on providing our clients with efficient and cost-effective solutions to support their recurring opex-based activities.”

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Notes to Editors:
Gulf Marine Services PLC, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, was founded in Abu Dhabi in 1977 and has become one of the leading providers of self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESV) in the world. The fleet serves the oil, gas and renewable energy industries from its offices in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. The Group’s assets are capable of serving clients’ requirements across the globe, including the Middle East, South East Asia, West Africa and Europe.

GMS has an ongoing new build programme which will increase the fleet size by 66% to 15 vessels (including two more Mid-Size Class SESVs) during the period 2014 to the end of 2016, in response to continued strong customer demand and an anticipated growing market in the foreseeable future.

The Group’s SESV fleet, currently comprising ten vessels, is technically advanced and amongst the youngest in the industry, with an average age of eight years.

The SESVs are four-legged vessels that move independently, with no requirement for anchor handling or tug support. They have a large deck space, crane capacity and accommodation facilities that can be adapted to the requirements of the Group’s clients.

These vessels support GMS’ clients in a broad range of offshore oil and gas platform refurbishment and maintenance activities, well intervention work and offshore wind turbine maintenance work (which are opex-led activities) and offshore oil and gas platform installation and offshore wind turbine installation (which are capex-led activities).

The fleet is categorised by size into Large Class vessels (operating in water depth of up to 80m, with crane capacity of up to 400 tonnes and accommodation for up to 300 people) and Small Class vessels (operating in water depth of up to 45m, with crane capacity of up to 45 tonnes and accommodation for up to 300 people). A third class, the Mid-Size Class vessels (operating in water depth up to 55m, with crane capacity of up to 150 tonnes and accommodation for up to 300 people) will be added to the fleet in 2015.

Demand for GMS’ vessels is predominantly driven by their premium capabilities as well as market growth underpinned by the need to maintain ageing oil and gas infrastructure and increasing use of enhanced oil recovery techniques to offset declining production profiles. This focus on opex brownfield work positions GMS well against a current background of challenging macroeconomic conditions.

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