Global – Rates for shipping waste material are set to increase following a more confident analysis of the market by Maersk Line, the world’s largest container ship operator.
Nils Smedegaard Andersen, Chief Executive of the AP Møller-Maersk group, told the Danish Society of Financial Analysts: ‘At the moment, freight rates are at a level where container transport is earning money again. We are still working to get higher rates and hope there will be a pick-up in world trade after the summer.’
If the upward trend proves sustainable, it may be enough to pull the shipping industry out of a four-year slump brought on by oversupply of vessels and weak demand. According to Mr Andersen, recent rate increases indicate that most container shipping lines are probably operating at break-even levels. This is a dramatic change from last year when Maersk Line and its rivals were dragged deep into the red.
Mr Andersen said he hoped the oil and shipping group’s operations may climb back into ‘positive territory’ if the scenario continued to brighten. ‘We are well equipped for the time to come; we have roughly the fleet capacity that’s needed to maintain our market share in the next five years,’ he remarked.
However, he concluded that the industry was likely to remain significantly weighed down by overcapacity until 2016-17.
For more information, visit: www.maerskline.com
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