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KNOT Concludes Time-Charter Contract for New Shuttle Tankers

Knutsen NYK Offshore Tankers AS (KNOT; headquarters: Haugesund, Norway), of which NYK has a 50 percent share, has concluded a time-charter contract with Brazil Shipping 1 Limited, a subsidiary of the U.K. energy supplier BG GROUP PLC. This contract is for a maximum 20-year period starting from the second quarter of 2017 and follows the time-charter contracts that were concluded in September 2014 for two shuttle tankers.*  

The new contract aims to use a 158,000 DWT Suezmax tankers built by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. and equipped with enhanced dynamic-positioning systems to shuttle crude oil processed in waters off Brazil. BG GROUP PLC owns interests in oil and gas fields in the waters off Brazil and is one of the major players in this area.

 Upon commencement of this tanker contract, the KNOT Group will have 32 shuttle tankers in operation or on order.

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, such as those that are part of the company???s shuttle tanker and offshore business.

* 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.