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Maersk third-quarter profits halved by lower container freight rates, oil prices

Xinhua, November 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Historically lower container freight rates and lower oil price have caused the profits of Danish oil and shipping group A.P. Moeller-Maersk to halve in the third quarter, the company said Friday.

The group earned 778 million U.S. dollars in profits in the third quarter of 2015, a decline of nearly 50 percent from the level of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in the same period of last year, according to the company's interim financial report.

"The decline was primarily due to container freight rates decreasing to a historically low level, especially in the later part of the third quarter, while profits of Maersk Oil were impacted by lower oil prices," said the CEO Nils S. Andersen in a statement.

Maersk said the third quarter was characterized by poor market conditions with oversupply and decreased imports to Europe, where freight rates declined 19 percent to "new historical lows".

The group has revised its expectations for increase of global demand for seaborne container transportation down to 1-3 percent against the previous forecast of 2-4 percent.

In response to the current market outlook, Maersk Line and Maersk Oil said that they would lay off at least 4,000 employees globally by the end of 2017 and about 1,250 employees this year, respectively. Endi