South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co has gone into receivership, which could mean higher costs for recycling exporters.
The shipping company went into receivership on Wednesday and according to reports, ports in China, Spain and Vietnam are refusing entry to Hanjin ships on the basis that they may not pay port fees.
With the company being the seventh largest shipping company in the world, it is inevitable that some UK material destined for the export market was on board Hanjin vessels.
Vanden Recycling managing director David Wilson said: “The receivership of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd will cause disruption for a number of exporters of recyclable material.
“With ports in China blocking access to Hanjin vessels, there will be a large number of containers trapped on the water, at least in the short term. Eventually, I would hope that this material would find a destination once the receivership picture becomes more clear and we will be working hard to ensure the small number of loads we have with Hanjin at present will go to where we intended.
“This could also lead to increased shipping costs for exports, as there will be less competition in the market with the seventh largest shipping line in the world going into receivership. We could start to see this having a negative impact on price over the coming days and weeks.”
