In the first six months of the year, revenue of Danish A[ds_preview]. P. Moller-Maersk Group increased to 23.7 bill. $ from 23.3 bill. $ in the same period of 2013. Profit grew enormously from 1.6 bill. $ to 3.5 bill. $. Two financial factors played an important role: As part of a strategy to »focus on the core business,« the conglomerate sold its majority stake in Dansk Supermarked Group, resulting in an 2.8 bill. $ gain. Concurrently, this additional income was reduced by a 1.7 bill. $ impairment on Brazilian oil assets.
Growth for the group was driven mainly by the container division Maersk Line, the terminal operator APM Terminals and Maersk Oil. In the still highly competitive liner shipping business the Danes achieved a sales increase from 12.96 bill. $ to 13.37 bill. $, while profit grew from 643mill. $ to 1 bill. $ and the return on invested capital (ROIC) from 6.2% to 9.9%.
Although the average freight rate per FEU (forty-foot equivalent unit) went down slightly by 2.2% to 2,631 $, the improvement in the financial performance was achieved through higher volume and lower costs mainly driven by vessel network and bunker efficiencies. After 4,34mill. FEU had been carried across the oceans in the first half of 2013, now 4,64mill. FEU were shipped by Maersk Line (+6,9%). Unit costs declined by 4.4% or 118 $ to 2,585 $/FEU compared to Q2 2013. The average bunker consumption per container was reduced by 7.2%. Total bunker costs of 1.3 bill. $ fell by 2.8% despite the volume growth. A slight decrease of 1.8% in the average bunker price helped to achieve this reduction.
In 2015, however, Maersk Line expects additional bunker costs of 200 mill. $ due to the new sulphur regulation in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, the shipping company recently said in a press meeting in Hamburg. Since Maersk is not planning to retrofit vessels with scrubbers, the line is forced to switch to low-sulphur marine bunker in the emission control areas. A total annual consumption of 650,000t bunker fuel with reduced sulfur content of 0.1% is expected, resulting in the aforementioned extra costs.
Based on the positive results, A. P. Moller-Maersk Group has further raised profit expectations for the entire year from about 4 bill. $ to 4.5 bill. $.
