NYK's Offshore Tanker Business Inks Time-Charter Contract with ENI for Two Shuttle Tankers

October 27, 2011

Knutsen NYK Offshore Tankers AS (headquarters: Haugesund, Norway), of which NYK has a 50% share, has signed a time-charter party with Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi S.p.A (ENI, headquarters: Rome, Italy), an Italian multinational oil and gas company. The contract is for two shuttle tankers for a maximum 10-year period starting from summer 2013.

Two new 123,000 DWT Suezmax tankers, which are being built at Hyundai Heavy Industries and will each be equipped with a dynamic-positioning system , will be used for the contract to transport North Sea crude oil ashore. ENI has many interests in North Sea gas and oil fields and is thus one of the major players in the area.

The contract is the first between ENI and KNOT for shuttle tankers, and at the same time, is the first long-term time-charter shuttle-tanker contract for ENI. KNOT and ENI have agreed to work together to further strengthen their relationship with each other as important business partners.

The NYK Group will continue its efforts to provide stable and economical energy-transport services.

(1) 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.

§ About NYK
Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha is one of the world's leading transportation companies. At the end of March 2011, the NYK Group was operating 827 major ocean vessels, as well as fleets of planes, trains, and trucks. The company's shipping fleet includes 143 containerships, 344 bulk carriers, 57 wood-chip carriers, 118 car carriers, 86 tankers, 29 LNG carriers, three cruise ships, and 47 other ships. NYK's revenue in fiscal 2010 was about $22 billion, and as a group NYK employs about 54,000 people worldwide. NYK is based in Tokyo and has regional headquarters in London, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, and Sao Paulo.

NYK Line, press release