Royal visit on the FPSO Yùum K’ak' Náab

On the occasion of the Norwegian Official Visit to Mexico the BW Offshore FPSO Yùum K’ak' Náab was visited by His Royal Highness Crown prince Haakon Magnus and Norway’s Minister of Petroleum and Energy Terje Riis-Johansen on Thursday 19 March. The royal visit onboard was hosted by PEMEX’s Director de Petróleos Mexicanos Dr. Jesús Reyes Heroles.

The prominent guests were introduced to and shown the main technical components of the vessel under the guidance of the FPSO manager Jan Kolstø, BW Offshore’s EVP Operations Jon Myran and representatives from PEMEX' top management.

The visit offshore was followed by great attention from Norwegian, Mexican and other international media. The main objective for the official visit to Mexico was to further develop the economic bilateral relations. Mexico and Norway share the wish for further development of the oil and gas industry, and several seminars on this topic, arranged by the oil and gas organization INTSOK, took place at the same time.

BW Offshore operates Yùum K’ak’ Náab for PEMEX in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). The FPSO commenced production in June 2007 on a 15 year lease and operational contract. The name Yùum K’ak’ Náab means “Lord of the Sea” and derives from the Mexican ancient Maya culture. It is designed to operate in hurricane conditions and is the world’s largest converted FPSO.

Yùum K’ak’ Náab, which was the first FPSO in the GoM, entered 2009 with four notable landmarks under its belt:  
• 500 days without any lost time injuries
• 200 million barrels of crude oil exported
• 50 million barrels of crude oil produced
• 400 off-loadings performed

The FPSO processes large volumes of heavy crude oil and sour gas as well as importing large volumes of stabilized light crude. The total crude oil handling capacity is 600,000 barrels per day, which gives a new offloading operation of export oil from the FPSO to shuttle tankers almost every day. It has the biggest oil throughput of any FPSO.