As Hanjin has stepped closer to bankruptcy, other shippers and ports began turning its ships away, leaving some vessels stranded and many customers stuck without their merchandise.
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South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co., the seventh largest shipping lines in the world, has filed for bankruptcy protection, creating a tremendous amount of uncertainty with shippers, including many exporters of recyclables.
Freight brokers told The Wall Street Journal that about 25,000 containers cross the Pacific daily on Hanjin ships.
A local court on Thursday approved a filing by financially shaky Hanjin Shipping Co.to be put under court-led restructuring, paving the way for the country’s No. 1 shipping line to avert liquidation.
Major U.S. ports are forecast to handle 1.61 million 20-foot equivalent units this month, down 0.6 percent from the same month previous year, according to the retail federation.
Terminal operators indicated they would load and unload cargo if payments were received in full. Information to that affect is on the website of Total Terminals International, which runs the facility.
Cargo activities along the US west coast, stretching from Seattle to Long Beach, have been halted.
Hanjin’s bankruptcy was a major factor, he said, although prices also were affected by an upcoming Chinese national holiday, Golden Week, that will close factories, and by shipping lines sidelining vessels to reduce overcapacity. MSC owns a 46% stake in TTI, according to the Port of Long Beach. Those include members of the CKYHE Alliance – Evergreen Line, Cosco Container Lines, K Line and Yang Ming Line. Peter Schneider, vice president of T.G.S. Transportation Inc. based in Fresno, California, said some harbor trucking companies could be hard hit: smaller companies that “had all their eggs in one basket with Hanjin… may go under”.
The containership Hanjin California, capable of carrying 3,600 containers and possibly not far off that due to this being the start of the busy trade season, is now off Port Botany. If this happens and the transition is done quickly then Gold hopes the “disruptions that we are seeing will not be long-term”.
Hanjin, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, stopped taking new shipments as it seeks receivership in an attempt to reorganize its debts. With about 5 percent of ships in the global trading fleet sitting idle, he believes there is room to take over Hanjin’s capacity and carriers already are discussing the possibility of adding ships.
More than 500,000 containers currently in transit on Hanjin vessels now face delays, although the Korean athorities are likely to seek a prompt resolution to the situation.
South Korea’s largest and one of global top 10 sea carriers, has caused disarray in maritime traffic as clients of Korea’s largest cargo carrier scurry to look for alternatives to keep their deliveries on time.
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Hanjin’s shares, suspended since plunging 24 percent on Tuesday, will resume trading on September 5, the stock exchange said. The company is now in business with no less than 8,181 shippers around the world, including 847 in South Korea.
