Without the needed cash to pay port usage and container handling fees, Hanjin has kept roughly $14 billion of cargo circling ports around the world.
Advertisement
“The New Jersey bankruptcy court issued a stay order” aimed at protecting some ships from being seized by creditors, Hanjin Shipping spokesman Jang Jin-Hong told AFP.
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. They can get away with it because retailers are starting to scramble to make sure their deliveries hit distribution centers ahead of the peak year-end holiday season, industry sources said.
Hanjin Shipping Co.’s container boxes are stacked five high at Busan port in Gyeongsang Province on September 9, 2016.
Nothing in the court order “should be deemed to compel parties like Maher to continue to provide services without receiving payment or adequate assurance of such payment”, it added.
An attorney for Hanjin, Ilana Volkov, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Though the judge’s order allowed container ships operated by Hanjin to dock in US ports without interference from creditors, it was unclear if the company could afford to pay for services needed to offload the ships.
Vokov said there is now money to unload the Greece and Boston, as well as two other ships off the United States coast: Gdyina and Jungil.
It also said nine more vessels will be deployed to Southeast Asia to take on cargo from Hanjin’s ships and help alleviate disruptions to the global supply chain, without identifying the companies involved. As of Thursday afternoon, two Hanjin ships were near the Port of Long Beach, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which tracks cargo ship traffic.
That was welcome news for some US retailers, who have been scrambling to retrieve goods that have been piling up in ports and on vessels ever since Hanjin filed for bankruptcy protection in South Korea last week.
Separately, Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. previously said it would deploy nine vessels to Europe and four to the USA, as well as form an alliance with three other South Korean lines to offer services to Southeast Asia to minimize disruptions in the region. Many ships carry only a limited supply of low-sulfur fuel.
According to the ministry, Hanjin Shipping now operates 73 containers ships on the sea. The Seoul Central District Court is presiding over the receivership filed by Hanjin last week.
Advertisement
The company has sought protection from courts around the world as creditors line up.
