The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri) announced that its National Chemical Carriers subsidiary inked a deal on Feb. 24, 2016 to purchase five second-hand MR tankers.

The vessels were built in 2014 at South Korea's Hyundai Mipo Dockyard for Scorpio Tankers Inc.

As disclosed, the ships were bought for US$166.5m en block.

Scorpio Tankers said that the product tankers involved are STI Chelsea, STI Lexington, STI Mythos, STI Olivia and STI Powai.

Scorpio added it will record a write-down of approximately US$3.2m during the first quarter of 2016 in connection with the entry into this agreement.

The five ships will be delivered to NCC between Feb. 1 and June 30, 2016.

Bahri said that the financial implication of these five MRs is expected during the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2016.

The buying spree comes as Bahri reports a 240% increase in net profit for 2015, hitting SAR1.81bn (US$484m) against SAR533.8m reported in 2014.

The upswing in net income is mainly due to an increase in operating revenues as a result of a bigger VLCC fleet after completing the merger with Vela Marine International and buying and receiving several VLCCs and chemical tankers during 2015.