Lawyers for Hanjin said a South Korean bankruptcy court approved the release of $10 million in funding to unload four Hanjin Shipping Co. chartered ships that have been sitting off USA water, including the Greece and Boston, which is moored in the breakwater.
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Ilana Volkov, a lawyer for the company lawyer told a US Bankruptcy Court hearing in Newark, New Jersey: “We have the money to fully service those four ships”.
Volkov says the company had $10 million in a U.S. bank account to pay to service four container-laden ships bound for the U.S. Court papers show a total of 13 ships either owned or leased by Hanjin whose next port of call is in the U.S.
With Hanjin’s future in doubt, carriers have announced they will hike container freight rates by as much as 50 percent beginning next month as retailers scramble to secure shipping ahead of the peak year-end holiday season, industry sources said.
About US$14 billion (S$19 billion) worth of cargo was stranded by the collapse of the seventh-largest container carrier in the world. With three of the ships seized by creditors, 70 container ships are marooned at sea as they have been denied access to ports.
This photo shows Hanjin Shipping Co.’s cargo at Busan Port on September 9, 2016.
“Maher is now being victimized by having hundreds of Hanjin containers clogging up its facility and impeding the ability of Maher to properly service its other customers”, the company said in court papers on Thursday. According to Hanjin Group on Friday, the airliner convened a board meeting to approve the proposal for extending 60 billion won to Hanjin Shipping that has been placed under court administration, but failed to come to a decision.
“Right now, there is much more (freight) demand than there is supply”. One of the ships, the Hanjin Boston, is scheduled to head into the port on Friday afternoon for re-fueling.
Other people involved with Hanjin said cargo owners, including Samsung, were seeking ways to get their containers off Hanjin ships.
Singapore-based crop shipper Agrocorp International said that DP World, terminal operator at Port Metro Vancouver, last week held 24 containers, or 600 tonnes, of its Canadian lentils that were bound for India and Bangladesh, demanding a release fee of $450 per container.
The Seoul Central District Court is presiding over the receivership filed by Hanjin last week.
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The court has prevented Hanjin ships being seized if they enter United States ports, but Samsung has also asked the judge to order the ships be allowed to leave port once unloaded and for cargo holders to recover their property.
