Oil drilling off the coast starts in Dubai

1978 - Oil drilling operations off the Dubai coast of Jebel Ali got officially under way when His Highness Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum pressed the button that threw the giant drill heads into action. The eight-legged jack-up rig is on a ‘wildcat’ mission, oil terminology for an exploratory well, and depending on the depth they have to go down it could take up to six months before they know the result of their work.