AsiaTankers

Chambal completes sale of India Steamship fleet

Indian fertiliser producer Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals has finally offloaded its tanker fleet.

Chambal first put its five-strong aframax fleet in the shop window 12 months ago. It marks the end of trading for India Steamship, the ownership vehicle Chambal bought in 2004. India Steamship, founded in 1929, is one of the nation’s oldest shipping lines.

While it managed to sell one of the five LR2 product tankers, Ratna Puja, in March for $22.5m, Chambal held out another nine months in the failed hope that it might be able to get a decent price for the other four.

In the end, Chambal decided to bite the bullet and offload the remaining four product tankers – Ratna Shalini, Ratna Shradha, Ratna Shruti and Ratna Namrata – and multiple broking sources say the quartet have been sold en bloc for around $92.5m. No buyer has been identified, although the buyer is thought to hail from Greece. Whilst all four vessels are coated, only one was trading clean cargoes.

Chambal will use the money from the ship sales to finance an ammonia-urea project in Rajasthan.

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.
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