Where is our stuff? It's on ships that can't dock

[womanofthehills]

Hanjin ships, cargo and sailors stranded at sea

"Just imagine, there are some 540,000 containers with cargo caught up at sea," explains Lars Jensen, chief executive of Sea Intelligence Consulting in Copenhagen.

That means that a lot of the goods en route to the US are geared at the busy year-end holidays and any disruption will be a major headache for the companies that have entrusted their products into the hauls of the Hanjin freighters.

Ships, cargo and crew might find themselves stuck for weeks, if not months, without knowing when and where their current voyage will end.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37241727

[GP6971]

1. Hanjin vessels

Are not making port calls in fear their ships will be seized by creditors.

We stopped using them late last year as the handwriting was on the wall. Hyundai is probably not far behind.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Wait....you mean those ships are remaining at sea, undocked?

How long will their fuel last, I wonder. They have to park themselves somewhere, no?

[GP6971]

6. That's what I read this morning

Ships are staying offshore until things get resolved.

The nail in the coffin was the South Korean government's decision not to bail them out.

[GoDawgs]

4. Wow, I assumed Hyundai would snatch up their assets at fire sale prices

Didn't they build a lot of Hanjin's fleet?

[GP6971]

7. Hyundai Heavy Industries

I could be wrong on the actual name, but they probably built a lot of the Hanjin ships. But Hyundai Merchant Marine is a separate company and with the combination of depressed freight rates and the mega container ships being built, it doesn't fair well for a lot of the carriers. Overall, I understand Hyundai is not doing that well.

Since I deal in international transportation, I follow the below link;

gcaptain.com.

ETA. I believe Hyundai Metchant Marine is still a subsidiary of Hyundsi Heavy Industries.

[2naSalit]

2. Yikes

At least this could be a teachable moment when everyone sees what globalization hath wrought.

[GP6971]

8. To a great extent, yes

The steamship line industry, especially the Korean lines, have resisted a lot of the mergers. And they are now paying the price.

But the merged lines are paying a heavy price. I maybe ship 100 to 150 containers a year whereas 15 years ago I shipped 2,000 to 3,00 working for a different company. The liner industry has experienced a huge consolidation in the last 15 years. It's comparable to the consolidation of the airline industry.

[T_i_B]

12. It's overcapacity

Shipping lines have been building ever bigger vessels, but there just isn't enough freight out there to fill them up.

The best thing governments can do is to reduce import tariffs and trade barriers, however, the current trend is to do the exact opposite.

[2naSalit]

13. I noticed that

there is a trend to totally eliminate tariffs and such, it's not a workable solution to current issues in this time of humans and resources.

[T_i_B]

14. There is a current trend in the opposite direction

See American ISF regulations, Donald Trump standing for president on a very anti-trade platform and the UK voting to leave the EU. That's just a few examples. Protectionism is on the rise, often hand in hand with nationalist nastiness.

These things aren't causing the current crisis (shipping lines bear responsibility for that) but they are not helping matters either.

[Binkie The Clown]

5. There are those who say gobalization cannot be sustained.

Kunstler, among others. (I know, he's something of an insufferable asshole as times, but I'm pretty sure he' right on this issue.)

In a world where chickens are shipped from the U.S to China to be slaughtered and packaged and then sent back to the U.S to be sold in the supermarkets, something has to give. Walmart's rolling warehouse just won't work in a future with tighter energy supplies, and the day of cheap plastic pumpkins from China is drawing to a close.

Just another symptom of the decline and fall of industrial civilization.

[GoDawgs]

10. Binkie, your 2nd paragraph is one of the better globalization statements I've read in some time!

[Binkie The Clown]

11. Thanks. Just paraphrasing what others have written. n/t

[Snarkoleptic]

9. Oh noes, we may have to buy American over the holiday season!

Globalization is not as wonderful as politicians would have us believe.