Norway: Knutsen NYK Offshore Tankers Contracts Three Shuttle Tankers

Knutsen NYK Offshore Tankers (KNOT) has during a couple of months contracted three shuttle tankers that will be built at Huyndai Heavy Industries in Korea. The first shuttle tanker will be 157,000 dWt and will be delivered end 2012. The shipping company has signed a contract with Spanish oil company Repsol, and the tanker will be carrying oil from fields on the Brazilian shelf.

The two other shuttle tankers will be 123.000 dWt each, and will be carrying oil from the Goliat field in the Barents Sea to customers onshore. It is Eni Norge AS who is operator of the Goliat field, which is located between Hammerfest and Snøhvit. The tankers, to be delivered in the second half of 2013, will be designed and equipped for arctic waters. Amongst other things, like the M/T Bodil Knutsen, they will have a trunk on the foredeck where all pipes and valves, which on conventional tankers are mounted on deck, are placed inside a controlled atmosphere. Next to providing advantages relating to safety and working environment, in that crews may work indoors, it means that if an oil leak accidentally were to occur, it would not go overboard and pollute the sea.

Contraction of the three tankers is a milestone, considering it’s the first order for new shuttle tankers made since Knutsen OAS Shipping and Japanese Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) teamed up, forming Knutsen NYK Offshore Tankers (KNOT), Technical Manager Hans Tveitaskog says to Knut’n.

In addition to the three tankers ordered in Korea, a vessel is being built for KNOT in China, to be delivered this summer.

Knutsen NYK Offshore Tankers’ fleet counts 23 shuttle tankers in addition to the four newbuildings. This makes KNOT one of the world’s largest when it comes to shuttle tankers. Additionally, the company has a shuttle tanker operating as a floating storage unit (FSU).

Eni Norge and Statoil have chosen a floating production, storage and offloading platform developed by Sevan. Huyndai Heavy Industries in Korea is also going to build this rig.

[mappress]

Source: knutsenoas, August 8, 2011.