DryShips Inc is a dry bulk shipping company based in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. As of April 2011 the company owned 35 drybulk carriers, consisting of 7 Capesize

Capesize

Capesize ships are cargo ships originally too large to transit the Suez Canal . To travel between oceans, such vessels used to have to pass either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. In effect Capesize reads as "unlimited"...

, 26 Panamax

Panamax

Panamax and New Panamax are popular terms for the size limits for ships traveling through the Panama Canal. Formally, the limits and requirements are published by the Panama Canal Authority titled "Vessel Requirements"...

 and 2 Supramax vessels. Through its 74% owned subsidiary, Ocean Rig

Ocean Rig

Ocean Rig UDW Inc. is an operator of semi-submersible oil rigs based in Stavanger, Norway. The company also maintains offices in Luanda, Angola and St. John's, Canada. The company has two rigs, Leiv Eirikson and Eirik Raude, and has ordered four additional rigs from South Korea.The company was...

, DryShips also owns and operates two semi-submersible

Semi-submersible

A semi-submersible is a specialised marine vessel with good stability and seakeeping characteristics. The semi-submersible vessel design is commonly used in a number of specific offshore roles such as for offshore drilling rigs, safety vessels, oil production platforms and heavy lift cranes.The...

 oil rigs

Oil platform

An oil platform, also referred to as an offshore platform or, somewhat incorrectly, oil rig, is a lаrge structure with facilities to drill wells, to extract and process oil and natural gas, and to temporarily store product until it can be brought to shore for refining and marketing...

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In March 2011 one of the company's Panamax carriers, MS Oliva

MS Oliva

The MS Oliva was a bulk carrier launched in 2009. On 16 March 2011 the ship went aground off Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic, while on a voyage from Santos, Brazil to China with a cargo of soya beans....

, was wrecked off Nightingale Island

Nightingale Island

Nightingale Island is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean, 3 km² in area, part of the Tristan da Cunha group of islands. They are administered by the United Kingdom as part of the overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha....

, Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying from the nearest land, South Africa, and from South America...

, resulting in an oil spill which damaged local wildlife.

DryShips is a Marshall Islands

Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...

 corporation, formed in 2004. Its stock is listed on NASDAQ

NASDAQ

The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

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