Cranes shine in Spanish auction

Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers opened its new permanent unreserved auction site in Spain on Friday 4 June.

The opening took place during a two day auction at the 24 hectare site in Ocaña, near Madrid. It has a 500 seat auction theatre, customer parking, offices and a refurbishing facility. Ritchie Bros. has been operating from temporary facilities on this site since it bought the property in 2009.

IC was there to witness Ocaña Mayor José Carlos Martínez Osteso cut the opening ribbon and see some of the 2,200 pieces of construction equipment, including more than 70 cranes, being sold. This was the second highest number of cranes to appear at a Ritchie Bros. auction worldwide.

One of the attractions was a 250 tonne Liebherr LTM 1250 all terrain, the largest crane at the auction. It was sold for €1 million to a buyer in Chile.

By the second morning 1,040 bidders had attended the auction and that figure was expected to rise to 1,300. Some 50% of visitors came from outside Spain, including a significant proportion of crane buyers from India, China, Russia and the Middle East.

"It is no secret that the large [Spanish] rental companies have started to reduce their fleet in a substantial way," said Guylain Turgeon, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers managing director and senior vice president EMEA. "But there is still activity in Spain - people still want used equipment."

* Look out for an interview with Turgeon in a future issue of IC.