Container ship "Emma Maersk"
Over 100 years of its existence, Maersk has managed to participate in war, master oil production, and achieve a record profit of $5.2 billion. And it all began with a second-hand cargo steamship. Focus revealed amazing facts about one of the largest maritime carriers.
The history of one of the largest cargo carriers began in 1886, when a retired deep-sea captain Peter Mærsk-Møller bought a second-hand cargo steamship with his savings. In 1904, he stopped taking freight and together with his son created a shipping company. From the first days, the 'Svendborg Steamship Company' was led by the captain's son Arnold Peter Møller-Maersk, after whom 8 years later the company received its new name, under which it has been known for over 100 years.
Maersk owns the largest container ships in the world
In 1940, Denmark, offering no resistance, was occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany – King Christian X, hoping to save his people, signed humiliating and onerous treaties with the occupiers. The Møller-Maersk family not only disagreed with the king's policy. The family not only emigrated to the USA but also took their entire fleet with them. Moreover, the Møller-Maersks essentially entered the war on the side of the USA, placing their ships at the disposal of the US Navy. More than half of the company's fleet was lost in the battles of World War II.
Loading containers
In the early 1950s, Arnold Peter Møller-Maersk made a decision that seemed insignificant at first but proved to be no less fateful for the company than taking sides with the USA in the war: the company acquired its first oil tanker. This business allowed the shipowner to get closer to the world's largest oil producers, Shell and Texaco.
In 1962, the shipping company, with good connections among the oil industry, received an exclusive concession for oil and gas exploration and production in the Danish sector of the North Sea until 2042. For the new business, A.P. Moller-Maersk created a subsidiary, Maersk Oil, which in turn organized the DUC consortium together with Royal Dutch Shell and Texaco, which received 46% and 15% in DUC, respectively.
Maersk Oil tanker
Maersk Oil is actively involved in oil projects in Algeria, Qatar, Kazakhstan, the United Kingdom, Oman, and Turkmenistan. The prospects for the business are brilliant: currently, Denmark is beginning exploration of oil fields on the shelf of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Meanwhile, the estimated oil reserves just off the eastern coast of Greenland are estimated at over 600 billion barrels. However, the core of the corporation remained maritime cargo transportation.
Maersk container terminal
In the early 2000s, A.P. Moller-Maersk Group acquired the American company Sea-Land, whose founder was the inventor of those very shipping containers that revolutionized cargo transportation. Since then, the Maersk Line division has remained the world's largest container company. And at the same time, practically immune to acquisition.
2014 marked an absolute record for A.P. Moller-Maersk in terms of profit – it amounted to $5.2 billion. This turned out to be the highest figure in its history, and the keys to success were a focus on core businesses and cost savings.