Victor Restis’s Enterprises Shipping and Trading has been identified as the taker of the last four ships belonging to India Steamship, a division of Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals.
Fearnleys is reporting the Greek owner has paid $90m as an en bloc price for four LR2 product tankers.
Chambal first put its five-strong aframax fleet in the shop window at the end of 2015. The sale reported by Fearnleys 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. 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.
