GULF MARINE SERVICES PLC

New Long-Term Contract Reflects Improving Market  

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

The new charter is for three years (including options) and is scheduled to commence in early Q1 2017.  The vessel will be supporting well intervention activities for a national oil company (NOC) in the MENA region.

 Duncan Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of GMS, said:  

 "As we recently reported, we are seeing an increase in tender opportunities in the Middle East and our strategy to provide flexible and cost-effective offshore support solutions has proved pivotal in winning this long-term contract.  The new charter, which together with other recent contract wins has increased our total backlog by approximately two-thirds since 1 November 2016, demonstrates that the market is showing clear signs of recovery.  This contract win has also further strengthened our business relationship with a strategic NOC client and improved our current geographic diversity.   We are delighted our client has again recognised the value our modern four-legged vessels bring to intensive well intervention campaigns across multiple locations."   

This announcement contains inside information.

John Brown

Company Secretary (responsible for arranging the release of this announcement)

Gulf Marine Services PLC

3 January 2017 

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Notes to Editors:

Gulf Marine Services PLC ('GMS', 'the Company' or 'the Group'), a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, was founded in Abu Dhabi in 1977 and has become the leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs) in the world.  The fleet serves the oil, gas and renewable energy industries from its offices in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia 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.

The GMS SESV fleet of 14 vessels is amongst the youngest in the industry, with an average age of eight years. The 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), as well as offshore oil and gas platform installation and decommissioning and offshore wind turbine installation (which are capex-led activities).

The SESVs are four-legged vessels and are self-propelled, which means they do not require tugs or similar support vessels for moves between locations in the field; this makes them significantly more cost-effective and time-efficient than conventional offshore support vessels without self-propulsion.  They have a large deck space, crane capacity and accommodation facilities that can be adapted to the requirements of the Group's clients.  A well workover cantilever system that has been developed for the Large Class vessels will be available to clients for the first time in 2017.  Developed in partnership with leading Norwegian designer Dwellop A.S., the innovative cantilever allows GMS to significantly increase the level and type of well intervention activities that can be carried out from these vessels to include operations that have traditionally been performed by more expensive non-propelled drilling rigs.

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), 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) 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). 

Demand for GMS' vessels is predominantly driven by their premium capabilities, underpinned by the need to maintain ageing oil and gas infrastructure and the increasing use of enhanced oil recovery techniques to offset declining production profiles.

www.gmsuae.com

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Cautionary Statement

This announcement includes statements that are forward-looking in nature. All statements other than statements of historical fact are capable of interpretation as forward-looking statements. These statements may generally, but not always, be identified by the use of words such as 'will', 'should', 'could', 'estimate', 'goals', 'outlook', 'probably', 'project', 'risks', 'schedule', 'seek', 'target', 'expects', 'is expected to', 'aims', 'may', 'objective', 'is likely to', 'intends', 'believes', 'anticipates', 'plans', 'we see' or similar expressions. By their nature these forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, as they relate to events and depend on circumstances that might occur in the future.

Accordingly, the actual results, operations, performance or achievements of the Company and its subsidiaries may be materially different from any future results, operations, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, due to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Neither Gulf Marine Services PLC nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. No part of this announcement constitutes, or shall be taken to constitute, an invitation or inducement to invest the Company or any other entity, and must not be relied upon in any way in connection with any investment decision.  All written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or to persons acting on the Company's behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements referred to above.