111–120 of 224 posts
I'm curious - and surprised nobody seems to have mentioned or asked - what happens to all the sailors working aboard the ships, which are now stranded offshore? Do they continue working aboard, knowing that they probably won't be paid (because the company is bankrupt)? What's morale like? Can they leave, and how would they logistically? What kind of laws and rights (if any) apply to them in these circumstances? It's…
This is a mess because Hanjin's top management was in denial about the possibility of bankruptcy. Just like the typical startup. They've been trying for months to get a bailout deal from somebody, anybody - a merger, loans, their parent chaebol, their stockholders (Korean Air is the largest), or the S. Korean government. Everybody turned them down. There's too much container ship capacity right now; nobody needed Han…
The structure of present day shipping implies there could not be an orderly shutdown.
Continuously moving modern freight is akin to a bank. Any efforts to quickly "wind-down" the operation leads to a shortfall in cash, accelerating the bankruptcy process rather than stopping.
This bankruptcy means that companies shipping goods are no longer going to be able to treat shipping as a fungible commodity and instead are going to have to price in a risk component as well. That suggests that the largest and best financed players are likely to be able to command a premium which will accelerate losses at smaller players. This would increase the spreads further and create a viscous loop. Does anybod…
Hanjin doesn't really qualify as a "smaller player", do they? So, it seems to indicate any shipping company could end up in trouble, if the sixth largest in the world can fail so catastrophically in such a short time. Given the size of the expenses involved, and how thin the margins are (particularly in a market that has more capacity than cargo), it seems like it's not easy to predict who will be solvent six months…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oil is much less of a factor in shipping costs than people realise. These container ships are incredible, in terms of what they can carry versus the cost of the fuel.
The amount of fuel these ships burn is absolutely nuts, as much as 200-300 tons per day, approximately 65,000 to 95,000 gallons of the stuff, but the size of the ships is even more stupidly crazy, upwards of 150,000 tons, that they're actually quite efficient when you do the math. It probably takes 5,000 trucks to carry the containers stacked on one of the larger cargo ships and they burn way more than 19 gallons of…
And as you say, the cost of road shipping dwarfs that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone needed those parts to keep their assembly lines running, why wouldn't they just put up the money to have the ships unloaded? We're only talking about a few million to move these goods.
A company that desperately needs parts stuck on one of these ships is only going to have at most, a handful of containers onboard. Those containers might be worth several million but then that one company would be shouldering 100% of the unloading costs for a negligible portion of the ship's cargo. Nobody wants to be the party that blinks first as the longer they wait, the greater the likelihood of another party payi…
This is a mess because Hanjin's top management was in denial about the possibility of bankruptcy. Just like the typical startup. They've been trying for months to get a bailout deal from somebody, anybody - a merger, loans, their parent chaebol, their stockholders (Korean Air is the largest), or the S. Korean government. Everybody turned them down. There's too much container ship capacity right now; nobody needed Han…
Office and factory workers of a suddenly-derelict company can walk off the premises and go home. Imagine finding out that not only will the paychecks stop, you also can't leave your desk.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does this "Arrested by Bunker Supply Co. (Panama Canal) mean?
They arrested the vessel on order of a bunker supply company at Panama Canal. See http://www.maritimelawcenter.com/html/arrest_of_vessel.html .
This is a mess because Hanjin's top management was in denial about the possibility of bankruptcy. Just like the typical startup. They've been trying for months to get a bailout deal from somebody, anybody - a merger, loans, their parent chaebol, their stockholders (Korean Air is the largest), or the S. Korean government. Everybody turned them down. There's too much container ship capacity right now; nobody needed Han…
I guess this is because every big industry runs on commuters nowadays, so there are all these people who both are in the industry and read HN.