State-owned Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC) has placed a $250m order for four medium-range tankers of 50,000 tonnes with South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo Dockyard.

The ships are expected to be delivered by August 2014, AFP news agency reports. Hyundai Mipo could not be reached for a comment.

The deal is the last of three shipbuilding contracts tendered in January 2011 by KOTC. In early February, KOTC awarded South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Company an estimated $550m contract to build new crude oil tankers that will also be delivered in 2014.

Kuwait plans to expand its fleet of tankers to 34 vessels in three phases by 2020, from 21 currently.