KNOT Group Concludes Time-charter Contract for Shuttle Tanker
with European Oil Major
January 16, 2015
A group company of Knutsen NYK Offshore Tankers AS (KNOT; headquarters: Haugesund, Norway), of which NYK has a 50 percent share, has concluded a time-charter contract with European oil major for a maximum 11-year period starting in the first quarter of 2017.
The agreement is for a 152,000 DWT Suezmax shuttle tanker* equipped with a class 2 dynamic-positioning system** and a bow-loading system.*** The tanker will be built by COSCO in Zhoushan, China, to shuttle crude oil produced from the Santos and Campos basins off Brazil.
Upon commencement of this contract, the KNOT Group will have 31 shuttle tankers in operation or on order transporting crude oil from the North Sea and waters off Brazil and eastern Canada.
In accordance with its medium-term management plan “More Than Shipping 2018,” NYK will continue its efforts to provide stable and economical energy-transport services in the shuttle tanker and offshore businesses.
* Shuttle tanker
Also called a “floating pipeline,” a shuttle tanker loads crude oil from floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) units in deepwater fields while maintaining a certain distance in the ocean, and then transports the oil to crude-oil storage units or petroleum storage stations on land.
**Class 2 dynamic-positioning system
A more redundant dynamic-positioning system that duplicates all equipment and wiring so that no single fault in an active system will cause the system to fail.
***Bow-loading system
A system to carry out cargo operations along the bow of a shuttle tanker without contact between the tanker and the offloading unit (mainly FPSO units) in harsh sea conditions. Such a system also allows cargo hoses to be connected or disconnected from offloading units easier than usual so that the shuttle tanker may evacuate quickly in case of an emergency.
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