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ATHENS, GREECE -- (Marketwire) -- 11/14/12 -- DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS), or the Company, an international provider of marine transportation services for drybulk and petroleum cargoes, and through its majority owned subsidiary, Ocean Rig UDW Inc., or Ocean Rig, of offshore deepwater drilling services, today announced its unaudited financial and operating results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2012.

Third Quarter 2012 Financial Highlights

•For the third quarter of 2012, the Company reported a net loss of $51.3 million, or $0.13 basic and diluted loss per share.

Included in the third quarter 2012 results are:

•Costs associated with the 10-year class survey for the Eirik Raude of $16.8 million, or $0.04 per share; •Non-cash write offs associated with the full repayment of the $1.04 billion senior secured credit facility totaling $18.3 million, or $0.05 per share; and •Non-cash mark-to-market gains on interest rate swaps totaling $3.7 million or $0.01 per share.

Excluding the above items, the Company's net results would have amounted to a net loss of $33.3 million, or $0.09 per share. (1)

The Company reported Adjusted EBITDA of $141.0 million for the third quarter of 2012, as compared to $172.9 million for the third quarter of 2011. (2)

Recent Events

•Pursuant to Ocean Rig's previous announcements related to potential contract awards for the Ocean Rig Poseidon and Ocean Rig Athena, Ocean Rig has been awarded two three-year contracts for each rig for drilling in Angola from two different major international oil companies.

•On October 24, 2012, the Company entered into a secured credit facility with ABN AMRO, Korea Development Bank and Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, or KSURE, for a $107.7 million senior secured term loan facility to partially finance our tankers, Alicante, Mareta and Bordeira. The term of the facility is 6 years and the repayment profile is 12 years.

•As of September 30, 2012, the Company was not in compliance with certain loan-to-value ratios contained in certain of its original loan agreements under which a total of $157.3 million was outstanding as of that date. As a result, the Company may be required to prepay indebtedness or provide additional collateral to its lenders in the form of cash amounting to $77.2 million, in order to comply with these ratios.

•On September 27, 2012, we entered into supplemental agreements under our $518.8 million senior loan facilities and $110.0 million junior loan facilities, each dated March 31, 2006, as amended. Under these supplemental agreements, we agreed to pledge 7,800,000 common shares of Ocean Rig in favor of the lending syndicates in order to remedy the value maintenance clause shortfall.

•On September 20, 2012, Ocean Rig's wholly-owned subsidiary, Drill Rigs Holdings Inc., issued $800.0 million of aggregate principal amount of 6.50% Senior Secured Notes due 2017 offered in a private offering, resulting in net proceeds of approximately $782.0 million. Ocean Rig used a portion of the net proceeds of the sale of the notes to repay the full amount outstanding under its $1.04 billion senior secured credit facility.

•In July 2012, Ocean Rig formally commenced syndication of a $1.35 billion senior secured term loan facility to partially finance our drillship newbuilding hulls Ocean Rig Mylos, Ocean Rig Skyros and Ocean Rig Athena. This facility will be led by DNB and Nordea and is expected to have a commercial tranche and two export credit agency, or ECA, tranches. Ocean Rig has received conditional commitments for the commercial tranche and one of the ECA tranches, and expects to finalize this transaction during the first quarter of 2013.