FOREX WORLD TREND

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, owner of the world’s largest container line, posted a first-half loss as lower global consumption hurt freight volumes and cargo rates and it forecast similar results in the second half.

The net loss was 3.67 billion kroner ($700 million) compared with net income of 11.6 billion kroner a year earlier, the Copenhagen-based company said today in a statement. That was in line with the 3.7 billion-krone median estimated loss of a Bloomberg survey of five analysts. Sales fell 14 percent to 127.4 billion kroner.

“The result for the second half of 2009 is expected to be at the same level as the first half year,” Maersk said. That means the company, Denmark’s largest, may post its first full- year loss in at least six decades.

The container market will decline more than 10 percent this year as consumers rein in spending during the recession, the first year of contraction since the 1970 birth of containerization, according to a June forecast by London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. Maersk said today that volumes dropped 7 percent in the first six months of the year.

Maersk rose as much as 1,400 kroner, or 4.2 percent, to 34,400 kroner in Copenhagen trading and was up 3.6 percent as of 9:47 a.m.

“The outlook for the remainder of 2009 is subject to considerable uncertainty, not least due to the development in the global economy,” the shipping company said. “Specific uncertainties relate to the development in container freight rates, transported volumes, the USD exchange rate and oil prices.”

Maersk Line’s Loss

Maersk Line, which operates 470 vessels and owns 1.9 million containers, lost $958 million January to June compared with a profit of $268 million in the same period a year earlier.

Rates fell 30 percent in the period, it said, adding that it expected the trend to reverse, with “modest” rate increases starting in the third quarter. The container division has a global market share of some 15 percent, the unit’s chief executive officer, Eivind Kolding, said in a June 23 interview. Maersk said today the container division maintained its market share.

Maersk’s oil and gas business, the biggest profit contributor in the past three years, recorded a 57 percent drop in first-half net income to 2.8 billion kroner as oil prices fell.
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