The Maritime Industrial Services (MIS) Company yard in Sharjah has been awarded a contract for two jack-up drilling rigs by MENAdrill, a new $3 billion offshore drilling and services company launched by First Energy Bank.

The total value of the rig packages will be more than $400 million including tools, drill pipe, construction oversight and other associated costs.
The first rig is scheduled for delivery on 30 September 2010 while the second will be delivered at the end of that year.
The rigs represent anchor investment in the MENAdrill fleet. They are to be built according to the Super M2 designs of Friede & Goldman of Houston, Texas, USA, and are capable of operating in water depths up to 100 m to drill oil and gas exploration and development wells.  The rigs and associated equipment have been specifically designed to meet the needs of the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) and South Asia drilling markets and have accommodations for crews of up to 110 people.
Commenting on the new contract, Jerry Smith, MIS managing director, said: “We are very pleased to enter into this relationship with First Energy Bank. This order is a significant one as it sees MIS expanding its business to new clients and new areas.”
According to Smith, MIS is seeing an increased interest in its newbuild programme. “We expect this strong interest to continue over the next few years in line with the increase in demand for production in the region.”
MIS is the first yard in the Middle East to enter this programme and also the first yard in the ME to build a new offshore jack-up drilling rig.
“Business has been very good across several levels this year. In terms of revenue growth, the first half of 2008 saw 15 per cent growth over the same period last year, and over the past three years since 2005 MIS has seen an average of 70 per cent year-on-year growth,” he says. 
Growth in business has also resulted in the growth of employee numbers . The total reached around 5,000 across all its branches.
The company says it is currently enjoying its busiest order book across all its business lines. It has received a number of orders lately but the most significant project that has been announced to date was the Mosvold (Mosvold Middle East Jackup-Meju) contract for two Friede and Goldman Super M2 offshore jack-up drilling rigs – Hull 106 and Hull 108. The contract worth $335 million covers the detail design and construction of two offshore jack-up drilling rigs and each contract contains a  provision for a further option exercisable in 2008.  The contract delivery date for the two hulls 106 and 108 is December 2009 and March 2010, respectively. 
In addition, MIS is currently marketing its newbuild programme and is expecting to make announcements soon with regards to its hulls 109 and 110.
MIS operates across five business lines and with the recent acquisition of 3CMetal International, it has added one more business line. 3C Metal International specialises in engineering services and steel fabrication for the offshore and oilfield engineering.
“The market is good for our type of business and the fundamentals are still good, albeit this industry is as much aware of the global economic developments. The region will always rank high in the capacity of the world’s onshore and offshore oil and gas producers and we expect growth to continue due to the increasing worldwide demand for new oil and gas field developments and increasing maintenance of current producing fields,” says Smith.
Some of the main projects underway are:

Newbuild programme - MIS currently has five rigs under construction: Hulls 104 and 105 which are contracted to SeaWolf Oilfields Services and are scheduled for completion later this year; Hull 107 for KSAM2Petrodrill Offshore which is scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2009; hulls 106 and 108 which are scheduled for delivery in December 2009 and March 2010 respectively.

Rig refurbishment - Refurbishment of offshore jack-up drilling rig FG McClintock for Transocean Offshore. The work entails several UWILD survey and spudcan repairs among other repair and renewal work. Other rig refurbishment projects span a wide range of services from standard refurbishment required to extend certification to upgrading and testing work for a number of international clients including Transocean, Thule Drilling ASA, Ensco International and Hercules Drilling. The first of these projects, Transocean’s FG McClintock, is scheduled for delivery shortly.

Site Projects and EPC Services - Several projects such as RAKGas’ Atlantis gas train which is a multi-discipline construction project, and Margham Dubai’s booster compression which entails mechanical and piping fabrication, installation and testing, among many other projects.
In terms of value of MIS’ current work, the company has a confirmed backlog of over $600 million in orders which it plans to complete gradually over the next two years.
The company’s client list includes both international and regional names such as Transocean, BP, Arabian Drilling Company, Hercules Drilling, Thule, Dubai Petroleum, Snamprogetti, Saipem, Enoc, Qatar Petroleum, Petrofac, Crescent Petroleum, Ensco, Mosvold, Jackup, RAKGas, Total, Dugas, SeaWolf Oilfield Services, Ensco, KS Energy, Schlumberger, Foster Wheeler, Technip,  SBM, National Drilling Company, Pride International, among others.
Commenting on the company’s future plans, Smith says: “MIS, which was started in the Middle East in 1979, plans to continue building on its strong heritage and to expand both through organic growth as well as through suitable acquisitions which will enable MIS to increase its capacity and handle a large number of projects in oil and gas fabrication, construction and services and specifically in the two business lines of rig newbuild and rig refurbishment. In terms of its long-term plans, MIS would like to adapt itself to the changing energy sector by expanding its solutions to cover changing needs and demands.”