Shipping line now awaiting a decision from Belgium. HANJIN Shipping vessels will be able to call at ports in Germany without fear of being arrested by creditors seeking payment after legal authorities approved a bankruptcy protection order for the shipping line. A Hanjin official told Lloyd’s List that the company received the approval overnight Asia time. The port of Hamburg was one of the three international ‘safe haven ports’ that the South Korean government initially said Hanjin’s vessels would be able to berth and discharge cargoes at. With this, Hanjin vessels, at least on paper, will be able to berth and discharge their cargoes at international ports in the US, UK, Japan, Singapore and Germany.
The official added that the shipping line was now awaiting a decision from Belgian courts on whether its vessels will be legally protected from being seized in that country. The growing list of nations recognising Hanjin’s rehabilitation procedures in South Korea comes as a number of its vessels are stranded at sea off ports worldwide either for fear of arrest by creditors or as box handling companies refuse to provide unloading services on expectations of non-payment of fees. The official had noted that the latter point was an issue even for nations that had officially extended legal protection to Hanjin’s ships.
Hanjin vessels started docking in Singapore on Thursday after waiting for around three weeks for talks to be settled since the city state was named as a safe port for the troubled South Korean company’s ships. The shipping line noted that due to legal and financial constraints under Korean court receivership, many of its service schedules have been affected. It added that for ships that had been stuck offshore and were unable to discharge cargoes at the intended ports, the shipping line had “exhausted all means to secure alternative options to complete final delivery to the final destination”. “To our sincere regret, we are unable to perform the intended delivery.” Some of the stranded ships have returned to the so-called ‘safe haven’ port of Busan in South Korea to discharge their cargoes, leading to some congestion there.
A Busan port official told Lloyd’s List that to date, a total of 19 containerships were waiting off the coast to be scheduled to call at Hanjin’s container terminal there, with three of those vessels arriving on Friday. Nine Hanjin containerships have already completed the unloading of their cargoes, the official said, adding that port authorities have not encountered any issues with service providers refusing to handle the cargoes so far. Earlier in September, Busan port officials guaranteed that they would pay fees owed for lashing services provided to Hanjin vessels.
The guarantee means Hanjin vessels can again be processed at Busan after lashing service providers refused to work on Hanjin containers for fear of non-payment after the company filed for receivership. The South Korean government has co-opted compatriot shipping line Hyundai Merchant Marine to dispatch 13 of its vessels to relieve stranded Hanjin ships in Europe and the US. In the latest measures, HMM will send 5,041 teu Kaethe P from Busan to Europe on Thursday next week, with port calls at Busan, Shanghai, Yantian, Singapore, Valencia, Southhampton, Rotterdam and Hamburg.
“However, we will flexibly deploy an additional vessel to Europe depending on demand volume. We will pull our weight as a national carrier to support the shipping industry,” a HMM official told Lloyd’s List. The official added that the first vessel it deployed to relieve Hanjin ships in the US, the Hyundai Forward, reached the port of Los Angeles on Tuesday. The second containership to the US, Hyundai Platinum left Busan on Monday, while the remaining two vessels, Hyundai Busan and Hyundai Shanghai, are scheduled to depart Busan on September 25 and September 30, respectively. “The departure schedule can be flexibly changed by weather, port congestion or main shippers’ critical request,” the official said.
