Dive Brief:

• The first of three Hanjin ships that have been sitting off shore in Long Beach was allowed to dock Saturday and began to unload its cargo, according to a Reuters report.
• A U.S. bankruptcy court provided protection for the ships to dock on Friday after a Korean court promised to raise over $90 million to provide the company solvency and released $10 million to unload cargo from the stranded ships.
• The other two Hanjin ships are still waiting off shore in Long Beach. It is not clear when they may get the go-ahead to dock.

Dive Insight:

The docking of one of the three ships signals a positive move in the gridlock that has kept $14 billion of cargo stranded offshore. Anxious retailers are hoping more ships will be allowed to dock and start the process of delivering goods for the holiday season.  

Hanjin Shipping filed for bankruptcy Aug. 21 after failing to restructure which its debt created a ripple effect causing shippers to scramble to get ahold of their containers. About a dozen of Hanjin ships were then stranded at sea, unable to dock since ports feared Hanjin could not pay port fees. In addition to the millions of dollars worth of missing goods, Hanjin's bankruptcy also caused problems for droves of longshoremen, truck drivers and warehouses who were awaiting the cargo.

The most recent court decisions to allow the ships to dock in the U.S. and providing liquid assets to help unload the cargo should begin the slow resolution of what is nearing a month-long inconvenience for the industry. However, putting an end to the Hanjin deadlock will still take time as individual agreements must be reached for each vessel before docking.