Pay or forfeit containership, Hanjin Heavy tells CMA CGM

SOUTH KOREA's Hanjin Heavy Industries has reportedly told the Marseille shipping giant to pay for the first of four 6,500-TEU vessels or have it sold to another owner.

The deadline is next Tuesday, say industry sources, reported by Lloyd's List, which added that the shipyard had already cancelled the third in a series of four cellular ships ordered by CMA CGM.

Hanjin Heavy Engineering recently sold one of the ships that CMA CGM had ordered, reported Newark's Journal of Commerce, adding that the CMA CGM Kessel went to Cardiff Marine for a reported US$41 million.

Cardiff then reportedly chartered it out to Mediterranean Shipping Company MSC. "We heard that Hanjin sold it for a very cheap price," said CMA CGM's new CEO Rodolphe Saade, who replaced his father, the company founder, Jacques Saade, who had to step down to satisfy lenders, and became non-executive chairman.

Talks with Korean yards involve the delay or cancellation of orders for 30 ships. "The negotiations with the shipyards are not the easiest. It's a long process," the younger Mr Saade told the Journal in an interview. "We are maintaining our fleet, and at the same time, we are taking delivery of newbuildings."

The new big ships are being deployed on Asia-Europe routes to replace chartered vessels returning too their owners or being assigned to other routes, notably, the transpacific, he said.

Separately, the troubled French carrier expects to receive the balance of the $500 million in short-term credit that the banks have agreed to extend.

"We are expecting $420 million within the next coming weeks," said Mr Saade. "Even though we cannot say that we have recovered from the losses we have incurred, it is definitely moving in the right direction. We have been seeing a very strong recovery in the last three months. We will make a profit in 2010."

(Source: www.schednet.com)