Pacific Traders and Shuttle Tankers

Knutsen (or Knudsen) is a fairly common surname in Norway, with the most famous man of that name being Gunnar Knudsen, who was Prime Minister of Norway in 1908/09 and again between 1913 and 1920. He was also a shipowner in his home village of Borgestad near Porsgrunn with a fleet of a dozen steam tramps of up to 7,000 dwt with names beginning ‘B’ owned by A/S Borgestad. He was also Vice President of Det Norske Veritas classification society during 1891/98, and always laid much emphasis on the certification part of Det Norske Veritas work rather than ship survey. This was because he wanted new Norwegian steamships to travel worldwide and obtain freights on the certificates from Det Norske Veritas. However, the Knutsen family of this article lived in the port of Haugesund, a pretty little town with 29,200 current inhabitants and a hemispherical bridge across a narrow coastal waterway 35 miles to the north of Stavanger. All of the Bergen Line mailships passed under this bridge on their route to or from Newcastle to Stavanger and Bergen.

Ole Andreas Knutsen began shipowning in 1895, and passed the business to his son Knut in 1900, who was Managing Director for the next 46 years of Knutsen O.A.S. Shipping A/S (O.A.S. meant the son of Ole Andreas). The first ship in their long fleet list was the sailing ship Graafstroom of 1,403 grt and had been completed in August, 1879 by the Alblasserdam yard of J. Smit. It was to be a dozen years before their first steam tramp of 6,000 dwt was completed in January 1907 as O.A. Knudsen by the Craig, Taylor yard at Stockton on Tees, with triple expansion engines by John Dickinson & Sons Ltd. of Sunderland. She had a steel weather deck with a fo’c’stle of length 31 feet, poop of length 46 feet, and a two deck high bridge structure of 102 feet ‘midships. She gave sixteen years of service to the company, being torpedoed on 23rd March 1917 by UB-39 some thirty miles off Beachy Head, but survived only to run aground on 30th June 1923 on Gull Island in St. Mary’s Bay, Newfoundland while on a voyage from Sydney (NS) to Wabana with coal. The vessel was wrecked and her crew were fortunately saved.

Coastal wooden, iron or steel vessels of less than 500 grt were also traded along the Norwegian coastline e.g. Almar, Annaho, Fridthjov, Ingeborg, Leif, Gottfried, Vibran, Varo, and Varoy. The first ship with the family surname of ‘Bakke’ joined the fleet in 1913 from the Bergen yard of Bergens Mek Verksted as a raised quarterdecker of 2,000 dwt. She had dimensions of 244.5 feet by 37.5 feet with a depth of 15.7 feet and a quarterdeck of length 104 feet. She was torpedoed and sunk on 7th June 1917 by U-88 (Walther Schweiger) some sixty miles east of the Shetlands while on a voyage from New York to Rotterdam with wheat, her crew fortunately being rescued.

A frequent cargo was pitprops from the Baltic to Albert Edward Dock and Tyne Dock on the Tyne, Victoria Dock or Albert Dock at Leith, or King George Dock and Queen Alexandra Dock at Hull. The steamer Garsoy of 642 grt built on the Tees by W. Harkess & Sons Ltd. in 1890, had delivered pitprops at the end of 1916 to the Tyne and then loaded coal for Nyborg, sailing on 11th January. However, she went missing, cause unknown, and all of her crew of fourteen were lost. Other World War I losses included the old steamer Ida of 1,300 grt, built back in 1884 at Bergen as Stella for Jacob R. Olsen of Bergen, which was torpedoed and sunk by U-79 (Heinrich Jess) 50 miles from the Wolf Rock while on a voyage from Valencia to Liverpool with fruit, her crew being rescued. The steamer Lisbeth of 1,621 grt was less than two years old when she was torpedoed and sunk on 31st March 1917 by UB-23 (Hans Ewald Niemer) to the northeast of the North Hinder Light Vessel while on a voyage from Rotterdam to Swansea in ballast.

Pacific Liner Services

After the end of World War I, with the insurance money from lost vessels, a move into liner services was made from Scandinavia and Northern Europe to the Pacific ports of North and South America as Den Skandenaviske Syd-Pacific Linje. The first Norwegian ship to pass through the newly completed Panama Canal in 1915 had been Bravo of 2,150 dwt built in 1908 and owned by Frederik Olsen, with six funnel-less motorships built in the inter-war years to carry lumber and grain from British Columbian ports and Portland (Oregon) to Northern Europe. Some of these were named after American presidents e.g. George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin. In comparison, Knut Knutsen built or ordered more Pacific ships, in fact fourteen cargo-liners fitted with thin or stove pipe funnels for these Pacific services during the inter-war years. The ports served on the West coast of North America were in British Columbia, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, while in South America those in Ecuador, Peru and Chile included Guayaquil, La Libertad, Lobito, Callao, Arica, Iquique, Tocopilla, Antofagasta, Valparaiso and Talcahuano. There were also regular Knutsen services connecting these North American and South American ports.

Two war standard types of 8,000 dwt built in 1917 by the Seattle Construction and Dry Dock Company were purchased as Golden Gate and Key West. They had dimensions of 380 feet by 53.2 feet with a depth of 27 feet, a bridge deck of length one hundred feet and accommodation for a dozen passengers. The Knutsen houseflag was white with a black ‘K’, and funnel colours were black with a wide white central band bearing a black ‘K’, changed during the inter-war years to the now familiar black with two closely spaced red bands. The twin screw three masted motor vessel Marie Bakke of 8,125 dwt was completed at Odense in 1926 on dimensions of 392 feet by 52.6 feet with a depth of 25 feet for these new liner services. She was fitted with a six cylinder 4SCSA B & W diesel engine to give a service speed of 12 to 12.5 knots. A trio of similar motorships, stretched by fifteen to twenty feet in length, were then completed in 1929 as the twin screw sisters Samuel Bakke and John Bakke of 8,380 dwt by the Gotaverken yard at Gothenburg, and Emma Bakke of 8,215 dwt from the Kockums yard. They were fitted with six cylinder 4SCSA Gotaverken oil engines to give a service speed of thirteen knots. Twelve passengers were carried as well as 51,000 cubic feet of refrigerated fruit, and their bunker capacity was 1,360 tonnes of fuel oil. They were shelterdeckers with two decks and a third deck in number one hold and a platform deck in the insulated hold, five holds and five hatches and electric auxiliaries.

The twin screw motor vessel Vinland of 7,400 dwt was completed in 1924 by Burmeister & Wain at Copenhagen and fitted with one of their oil engines on dimensions of 370 feet by 54 feet with a depth of 25 feet, and carried twelve passengers and a crew of 28. She followed a trio of similar twin screw motor vessels of 7,800 dwt from the Nederland yard in Amsterdam during 1921/23 as Indra, Tosca and Geisha and equipped with B. & W. diesel engines to give a service speed of eleven knots. A quartet of single screw motor vessels of 8,500 dwt was delivered by the Gotaverken yard during 1936/38 as Margarethe Bakke, Elizabeth Bakke, Martin Bakke and Sofie Bakke. They were fitted with five cylinder two stroke doble acting diesels of 5,800 bhp to give a service speed of 15 knots. Ten passengers were carried in five spacious double berth cabins, and cargo handling gear for the five holds was sixteen derricks of five tonnes capacity and one heavy lift derrick of twenty tonnes capacity. A sister was completed as Ida Bakke in 1938 by the Gotaverken yard for D/S Idaho of Christian Haaland of Norway.

Three of these Pacific traders were lost to enemy action or maritime causes during World War II, with Sofie Bakke sunk by collision with the Swedish vessel Lima five miles east of Buchan Ness on 4th August 1940, and Tosca sunk by U- 37 on 10th April, 1940 off the Norwegian coast while on a voyage from Talcahuano (Chile) to Eitrheim (Norway) with zinc, lead, cottonseed, beans and barley, two of her crew of 34 were unfortunately lost. Her sister Indra was torpedoed on the port side by UD3 on 26th November 1942 off the northeast coast of Brazil while on a voyage from Famagusta and Table Bay to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with chrome ore. The crew set off in two lifeboats for the Brazilian coast and four days later all of them were picked up by the British motor vessel Eurybates and landed at Trinidad. The survivors resumed post-war service, however Emma Bakke sank after an explosion and fire off the North African coast on 12th October 1954 while on a voyage from Philadelphia to Istanbul. She sank 250 miles from Casablanca and her crew and passengers were rescued by the steamer Corrientes.

THE SINKING OF THE TOSCA

The Daily Mail reported the sinking as follows:-

RESCUERS TORPEDOED AT SIGHT

Racing to the rescue of the Swedish oil tanker Sveaborg, torpedoed without warning by a U-boat, the Norwegian cargo steamer Tosca also fell a victim to the Germans. Both ships were sunk off the North-East Scottish Coast.

The Tosca, with a general cargo including barley, lost two men when a lifeboat overturned, and the Sveaborg lost one man.

Ole Maland, 31 years-old first officer of the Tosca, told a Daily Mail reporter when he and 31 other survivors of the crew landed at a North of Scotland port:-

” We were about eight miles behind the Sveaborg when, in the moonlight, I saw a great white fountain shoot high into the air above the tanker. Then followed the sound of a terrific explosion.

Escape Race Fails

The ship burst into flames. We put on full steam, and as we neared the sinking Sveaborg I saw the U-boat. Too late we realised we had been trapped. We changed course immediately but could not escape, for eight knots was our maximum speed.

The captain ordered the crew to standby ready to launch the lifeboats. By this time the submarine was only a quarter of a mile away. The torpedo struck our vessel.

As we lowered our lifeboats one of them, a motor-driven craft, capsized and two of our men were trapped beneath it and drowned.

Clung to Wreckage

The others clung to wreckage and rafts until we were picked up by the other lifeboat. We righted the upturned boat, which then took the second boat in tow, and set out for land.

We saw no sign of the men of the Sveaborg, which was now blazing furiously.”

The 32 men were in the lifeboats for ten and a half hours before they were picked up by a British warship.

A dozen post-war replacements and new cargo-liners of between 8,670 dwt and 12,400 dwt were then ordered mostly from the Gotaverken yard in Gothenburg as Olav Bakke, Ogeka Bakke, Anna Bakke, Gjertrud Bakke, Astrid Bakke, Kristin Bakke, Ellen Bakke, Martha Bakke, Emma Bakke, Ragna Bakke, Gudrun Bakke and Lloyd Bakke. The last five named in this list were part container ships with 320 to 354 TEU capacity and served on a fortnightly Trans-Pacific cargo and passenger service between Canadian and American West Coast ports and Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Port Swettenham, Penang, Broome, Wyndham and Fremantle, returning via Singapore, Port Swettenham, Penang, Hong Kong and Japanese ports. They had refrigerated capacity and deep tank capacity for vegetable oils and were fitted with two heavy lift derricks of 35 tonne capacity, and had service speeds of 18 knots from powerful supercharged Gotaverken diesels.

The last of these conventional cargoliners had been completed in 1962 and all were sold off by 1983, and had been replaced in 1978 by two Japanese built engines aft part container ships, John Bakke and Marie Bakke of 23,710 dwt and 1,020 TEU capacity. They were built by the Kobe yard of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. on dimensions of 185 metres by 26.35 metres with a draft of 10.2 metres, with seven holds and thirteen hatches served by nine cranes of between 10 and 25 tonnes capacity arranged in tandem. They had accommodation for a dozen passengers in eight spacious cabins, and high service speeds of eighteen knots from a ten cylinder 2SA M.A.N. diesel of 17,100 bhp. Marie Bakke had the misfortune to strike a bridge in the Willamette River on 28th October 1978 while on a voyage from Yokohama to San Francisco but damage was light and was soon repaired. The pair were later chartered to Leif Hoegh and then Dutch owners as Wedellsborg and Frijsenborg, but were sold in 1987 to CSAV of Chile and renamed Laja and Lircay respectively.

The last vessel to operate on the Knutsen Transpacific service to Far East ports and Western Australian ports was Hanne Bakke of 14,900 dwt and 550 TEU capacity. She had been launched as Eschenbach and completed as Usambara for Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linie by the Howaldtsweke Deutsche Werft yard at Hamburg. She had dimensions of 145 metres by 22 metres with a draft of 9.5 metres, and had four cellular holds and fourteen hatches served by a forty tonne travelling container crane. She served Knutsen for eleven years between 1986 and 1997, and had two German sisters in Urundi and Ulanga. The trio had service speeds of nineteen knots from twelve cylinder Vee M.A.N. diesels of 12,660 bhp. Hanne Bakke was renamed Heritage Express in 1997 with management retained by Knutsen.

Tankers

A large Knutsen fleet of crude and product tankers has been operated for over ninety years, and is the main current fleet today. In common with many other Norwegian shipowners in the 1920s, Knutsen ordered a twin screw tanker of 13,480 dwt backed by ten or fifteen year charters to the oil majors. The new Blythswood yard on the Clyde completed O. A. Knutsen in 1925, followed by Ida Knutsen of 14,030 dwt later that year from the Nakskov yard, Hilda Knutsen of 14,100 dwt from the Nakskov yard in 1928, and two tankers in 1931 of 14,280 dwt from the Gotaverken and Blohm & Voss yard as Anna Knudsen and Kaia Knudsen. The tankers were kept in service during the Depression with oil freight rates back to near normal by the end of 1932. John Knudsen of 14,260 dwt was completed in 1934 by the Gotaverken yard, and the first tanker O.A. Knudsen was renamed Eli Knudsen in 1937 to free the name for a new tanker of 16,150 dwt building at the Deutsche Werft yard in Hamburg.

Ida Knudsen was torpedoed and sunk by the Italian submarine Luigi Torelli to northeast of Madeira on 21st July 1941 while on a voyage from Port of Spain to Gibraltar with fuel oil, five crew being lost. O.A. Knudsen was torpedoed on the port side and sunk by U-128 on 5th March 1942 to the east of Abaco Island in the Bahamas. The crew abandoned ship in two lifeboats and eight men remained on board and managed to restart the engines and head for land. A second torpedo struck home 75 minutes later on the port side, sinking the ship with the loss of two crew members. She was on a loaded voyage from Port Arthur to Halifax (NS) to join a convoy for a British port.

The surviving tankers continued on long term charter to the oil majors, and were joined by ten new deep-sea and coastal tankers of between 17,300 dwt and 32,580 dwt during the fifteen years between 1945 and 1960. These were K.J. Knudsen, Eli Knudsen, Knut Knutsen O.A.S., Elisabeth Knudsen, Hilda Knudsen, Elin Knudsen, Tore Knudsen, Ida Knudsen, and Inger Knudsen, with the coastal tanker Vibran of 4,190 dwt completed in 1954 by the A/S Stord yard at Lervik. Tanker sizes increased by leaps and bounds in the 1960s with Anna Knudsen and John Knudsen of 75,300 dwt completed in 1966/67 by the Gotaverken yard. The Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) came into being in 1968 to bring economic rates for the long distance route from the Persian Gulf around South Africa to the U.S. Gulf and Europe. Knutsen responded with two VLCCs in Elisabeth Knudsen of 216,190 dwt in 1970 from the Kawasaki yard, and Torill Knudsen of 285,200 dwt in 1973 from the Odense yard in Denmark.

However, the OPEC price hike in crude oil prices in October 1973 sent the market for oil crashing down with demand severely cut in Western countries. The freight rates for the huge VLCCs went into spiral freefall, with Elisabeth Knutsen first laid up on 21st January 1975 at Haugesund and then sold at a fraction of her building cost. Torill Knutsen continued to trade to French and Greek refineries at reduced freight rates until demand for oil improved after 1980, and she was later sold in 1985. Knutsen then commissioned seven parcel and product tankers in the range from 15,000 dwt to 22,000 dwt, and they were completed from 1989 as Hilda Knutsen, Ellen Knutsen, Synnove Knutsen, Helene Knutsen, Pascale Knutsen, Sidsel Knutsen and Turid Knutsen for trading from European and American refineries. Larger parcel tankers such as Anneleen Knutsen, Gijon Knutsen and Siri Knutsen of 35,140 dwt were completed during 2002/06. Two former Chembulk chemical tankers of 22,377 dwt joined the fleet in 2000/01 as Isabel Knutsen and Maria Knutsen.

Shuttle Tankers

Shuttle tankers serve very essential and useful purposes in transporting crude oil from floating storage tankers or production rigs to onshore refineries. They are easily recognisable by their high bow loading systems. Many new examples have been completed or converted for use in the British and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea, the favoured size being of 125,000 dwt, and were mostly owned by the Norwegian fleets of Knutsen, Rasmussen and Ugland at first. The North Sea oilfield required many more shuttle tankers of 120,000 to 130,000 dwt during the mid 1980s to bring its bonanza of oil to oil refineries around the North Sea.

Knutsen was first into this market and continues today to be a major player, starting with Anna Knutsen and Ragnhild Knutsen of 1987, Tove Knutsen of 1989, Dicto Knutsen of 1990, Marie Knutsen of 1992, Tordis Knutsen of 1993, Vigdis Knutsen of 1993, Hanne Knutsen of 1995, Jorunn Knutsen of 1995, Elisabeth Knutsen of 1997 and Catherine Knutsen purchased in 1999. The smaller shuttle tankers Anneleen Knutsen and Betty Knutsen of 35,800 dwt were completed during 2000/02 at Gijon. Larger shuttle tankers of 148,000 dwt joined the fleet in 2005 as Heather Knutsen, Jasmine Knutsen and Jorunn Knutsen.

These shuttle tankers are mostly built in Spain, and nine similar sized North Sea tankers were managed for the Norwegian Government controlled Statoil A/S, with many production oil rigs in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and off Norway. Crude oil was transported in huge quantities to the Mongstad refinery in Norway from oilfields such as Heidrun, Norne and Lufeng by Navion Anglia, Navion Britannia, Navion Europa, Navion Hispania, Navion Munin, Navion Norvegia, Navion Oceania, Navion Scandia and Navion Scotia in the late 1990s. All these tankers continued to be managed by Knutsen for Statoil until Teekay Marine Services took over their management. Red Band Tankers controlled by Fred Olsen sold their Knock An, Knock Sallie and Knock Whillan in 2003 to Knutsen to become Gerd Knutsen, Sallie Knutsen and Karen Knutsen. The Shell Oil shuttle tanker Norrisia joined the fleet in 2003 and was renamed Kitty Knutsen and was converted into a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel in 2008. Rita Knutsen of 124,475 dwt joined the fleet in 2005 prior to conversion into a FPSO for Petroleum Geo Services (PGS), having been built for Ugland as Sarita in 1986.

A large fleet of 35 shuttle tankers, crude oil tankers, and product tankers was owned in 2006. Knutsen had recently entered the LNG gas carrier market in 2004 with two large gas carriers built in Spain by Izar Construcciones as Bilbao Knutsen and Cadiz Knutsen of 138,000 cubic metres capacity. They carry methane at minus 163 degrees Centigrade in four large membrane tanks with eight cargo pumps for discharge, and are steam turbine propelled with a service speed of 19.5 knots. Two further Spanish built LNG carriers entered service in 2006/07 as Sestao Knutsen and Iberica Knutsen, and four more of 173,400 cubic metre capacity joined the fleet during 2008/11 as Barcelona Knutsen, Ribera del Duero Knutsen, Sevilla Knutsen and Valencia Knutsen. The smallest LNG carrier in the world had joined the fleet in 2004 from the Bijlsma Scheepswerft yard in Holland for trading along the Norwegian coast. Pioneer Knutsen is really small at 1,687 grt, 817 dwt with a gas tank capacity of 1,100 cubic metres and a service speed of 14 knots.

The current Knutsen shuttle, oil parcel and LNG carrier fleet stands at 22 shuttle tankers, five parcel tankers and nine LNG carriers, with another shuttle tanker under construction at Zhoshan in China as well as two more LNG carriers. The shuttle tankers are Anneleen Knutsen, Betty Knutsen, Bodil Knutsen, Carmen Knutsen, Catherine Knutsen, Elisabeth Knutsen, Fortaleza Knutsen, Gerd Knutsen, Gijon Knutsen, Hanne Knutsen, Heather Knutsen, Hilda Knutsen, Ingrid Knutsen, Jasmine Knutsen, Jorunn Knutsen, Karen Knutsen, Recife Knutsen, Sallie Knutsen, Siri Knutsen, Torill Knutsen, Tove Knutsen and Windsor Knutsen. The five parcel tankers are Kristin Knutsen built in 1998, and four new tankers of 16,570 dwt built at Shanghai during 2009/10 as Birgit Knutsen, Eli Knutsen, Liv Knutsen and Louise Knutsen.

Whaling

Whaling in the Arctic had been carried out by several European nations for centuries, but whaling in the Antarctic was hampered by its difficult nature and did not start until 1903 using whale factory ships. The first was the Russian factory ship Michail of 3,643 grt, the second was Admiralen at South Shetland in the summer season of 1905/06, and the third was Fridtjof Nansen, lost during her first season in 1906/07. There were nineteen whale factory ships operating in the inlets of the Falklands Islands Dependencies in 1913. Salvesen of Leith entered whaling in 1907 and used the floating factories Neko and Horatio for the first time in the 1911/12 season, and subsequently was to process over half of the whales caught in the Antarctic, rising to 70% of production in some years. However, these factory ships were based at Leith Harbour on South Georgia and the catchers brought the whales into the island.

True pelagic or open sea whaling did not begin until 1923 when Norwegian shipowners began converting cargo-liners to operate more or less independently of land. The factory ships Sir James Clark Ross, Lancing, N.T. Nielsen-Alonso, C.A. Larsen (ex San Gregorio), Ole Wegger (ex San Lorenzo), Thorshammer (ex San Nazario), Southern Empress (ex San Patricio) and Southern Princess (ex San Jeronimo) had been converted by 1929 when Knut Knutsen converted his first factory ship, Suderoy. She had been built on the Tyne in 1913 by Armstrong, Whitworth Ltd. as Kim for P. Johanessen of Tonsberg with triple expansion steam engines by the North East Marine Engineering Co. Ltd. The aft hatches were built up to form a flensing deck to give a whale factory ship of 7,600 grt and 11,000 dwt on dimensions of 446 feet by 58 feet with a draft of 24.9 feet. She proceeded to process whales caught by her catchers in the summer Antarctic season of 1929/30, and was joined in the following season by Suderholm, the converted Knutsen Pacific cargo ship Key West of 8,000 dwt and built at Seattle in 1917.

There were 32 converted floating factories operating in the Antarctic in the 1929/30 summer season, and this had become big business ten years later with Norwegian, Russian, British, American, and German ships operating, a total of 44 converted or purpose built factories having operated during the inter-war years. The whale catchers serving each factory usually numbered ten or more, with dead whales tied to the sides of their hulls before being hauled up the stern ramp of the factory ship to the flensing deck. The Knutsen floating factories Suderoy and Suderholm operated again in post-war years, but nearly thirty big new purpose built factory ships of up to 24,570 grt had been brought into service by the time Suderoy completed her last season in the Antarctic summer of 1961/62. Whale stocks had been almost exhausted, and a whaling ban was brought in by the International Whaling Commission after Suderoy had been sold to Anders Jahre in 1962 and renamed Jalinga and then broken up a year later.

Postscript

Knut Knutsen and his wife Elisabeth (nee Bakke) were great philanthropists, and in 1921 he gave a one million Norwegian kroner donation of money to build Haugesund Town Hall, officially opened in 1931. This large and imposing pink stone building is one of the most famous buildings in Norway, and has a striking corner section embellished with double pillars and is surrounded by a park. Knut Knutsen died in 1946 and his widow Elisabeth gave more money to Haugesund Town Council to build the Town Hall Square complete with water fountains, and the surrounding park, which were opened in 1949.

Knut Knutsen OAS Shipping A/S is a world leader in the shuttle tanker, parcel tanker and LNG carrier fields. The well known Knutsen Pacific cargo-liner trades to the west coast of North and South America as well as Transpacific services to the Far East and the west coast of Australia lasted 75 years. The Baltic and North Sea pitprop and coal trades were not restarted after World War II after the loss of their last three ships to enemy action as Eikhaug, Varoy and Foina. The reefer trades were tried with the fruit carrier Vibran of 2,993 grt, completed at Helsingor in March 1935 with accommodation for a dozen passengers, but she too became a war loss on 24th September 1942 with the loss of all of her 34 crew and eleven passengers. Two more reefers were built in 1963 as Bakke Reefer and Bakke Cooler of 4,920 dwt by the Gotaverken yard at Gothenburg but they were soon sold off.

In 1982, after the tanker freight rates crisis, the Knutsen family owned company was dissolved, and a new company Knutsen OAS Shipping A/S was established in 1984 by Bergen Bank, the Knutsen family and Jens Ultveit-Moe. The Bergen Bank and the Knutsen family subsequently sold their shares when the first shuttle tanker contract was obtained in 1987, and Jens Ultveit-Moe and Trygve Seglem became joint owners. The company is headquartered in a modern stone building at Haugesund, and employs 1,230 seafarers and has an office staff of 64 people. It is very much the case that Knutsen OAS Shipping A/S operates only in trades in which they have the necessary advanced tanker expertise and technology.