Hanjin Shipping Removes Thousands of Containers from Port of Long Beach

Hanjin Shipping is working to remove 4,300 shipping containers from the Port of Long Beach. (Image via Reuters)

The Hanjin Shipping bankruptcy resulted in stacks of cargo containers clogging up West Coast ports, like the Ports in Oakland and Long Beach, Calif. To ease up the congestion, Total Terminals International LLC (TTI), which runs port terminals for Hanjin, is working with the Port of Long Beach to remove 4,300 containers.

In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, port officials said that they expect a ship to arrive within the next few days. TTI workers will load containers onto the ship, and the port will waive wharfage fees in exchange for freeing up the space.

After Hanjin Shipping’s bankruptcy filing, truckers moved almost 10,000 boxes to make way for other companies’ containers. The company accepted its containers at the Seattle and Long Beach, Calif., ports, but other containers that it had leased still were stranded.

“TTI has already begun accepting empty Hanjin containers from container-leasing companies, freeing up every chassis that drops off a container,” Noel Hacegaba, director of the Port of Long Beach, told The Wall Street Journal. “As many as 3,000 containers will literally be taken off the street … with another 1,300 being removed from the port, putting thousands of chassis back to work.”