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.