Ritchie Bros. sells almost $100M of equipment at its largest-ever pipeline construction auction

Last week at the company’s largest-ever, single-owner auction for Barrileaux Inc., Ritchie Bros. sold approximately $99 million of pipeline construction equipment.

Ahead of the Barrileaux auction, Ritchie Bros. Chief Revenue Officer Kari Taylor told CONEXPO-CON/AGG 365 that the company is driving unprecedented demand across all its marketplaces and that prices in the truck tractor, earthmoving equipment, vocational trucks and aerial equipment sectors are all up at least 20%, according to the company’s July 2021 Market Trends Report.

In under two days from Aug. 10-11 and from three locations in New Mexico and Texas, the auctioneer sold more than 3,100 items to thousands of online bidders worldwide; Ritchie Bros. also hosted a live simulcast event from its site in Houston, where customers interacted for the first time in 18 months.

“It was a great couple of days with excellent results that went way beyond our target,” said Glen Barrilleaux, owner of the oilfield pipeline construction company. “I’ve built a great relationship with Ritchie Bros. over the past 15-plus years I’ve been working with them. This whole process went so smoothly because of their professionalism and hard work. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Ritchie Bros. to anyone looking to conduct their retirement sale.”

More than 6,900 people from 56 countries registered for the Barrileaux auction, Ritchie Bros. said, and U.S. buyers purchased approximately 95% of the equipment – with approximately 41% of the items going to Texas buyers.

The remaining 5% of the goods were sold to international buyers from countries such as Belize, Morocco and Australia.

Here are the five biggest sellers from the Barrileaux auction:

• 2015 Vermeer T1155III crawler trencher – $800,000
• 2019 Caterpillar D8T crawler tractor – $620,000
• 2019 Caterpillar PL83 crawler pipelayer– $430,000
• 2018 Caterpillar 330FL hydraulic excavator – $240,000
• 2021 Peterbilt 389 sleeper truck tractor – $265,000

“This was the nicest fleet of equipment I’ve seen in my 40-plus years in the auction business,” said Alan McVicker, regional sales manager with Ritchie Bros. “We’d like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Barrilleaux for putting their trust in Ritchie Bros. and we wish them all the best in their retirement.”

McVicker said the auctioneer’s next event, in Houston from Aug. 24-26, will be a live auction with approximately 35,000 equipment items (1,000 of which are Texas-based items) available.

The next events on the company’s calendar are an Orlando, FL auction from Sept. 2-3 and a Southeast Regional auction from Sept. 9-10.