Danish container-shipping, oil and gas, tanker and retail giant AP Moller-Maersk said yesterday the economic crisis had a severe negative impact on its business in the first half of 2009.
The group, whose oil and gas division is strongly represented in Aberdeen, from where it runs its UK North Sea business, said container-shipping freight rates and volume were down by 30% and 7% respectively on a year earlier, and average rates for tanker activities were considerably lower than in the first half of 2008.
It also said lower oil prices had a negative effect on its oil and gas activities, partly offset by an 8% increase in its share of oil and gas production. The group added after reporting results for the six months to June 30 below expectations that results for the second half of 2009 were likely to be similar to the first half, although the outlook was uncertain.
Chief executive Nils Andersen said: “The economic crisis had developed worse than we expected, but most of our business units are doing better than the market and we believe we will emerge a stronger company on the other side of the crisis.”
AP Moller-Maersk posted pre-tax profits of £676million for the six months, down 83% year-on-year, with revenue down25% to £13.79billion.
Its oil and gas arm, which has operations in the UK, Denmark, Qatar, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Angola, Norway, Oman and the Gulf of Mexico, contributed pre-tax profits of £1.26billion on revenue of £2.46billion, compared with £3.17billon on turnover of £4.29billion the year before.
Container shipping, by far the group’s biggest business, made losses of £532.7million for the period.
