More third quarter results out recently show the confused state of the global freight and logistics market. Maersk, with the biggest container shipping fleet in the world and a sizeable share of the tanker market admit to poor results despite healthy tonnage increases, mainly due to the collapse of freight rates in both sectors.

AP Moller Maersk as a group cover a wide range of logistics activities but its current financial statistics show a 78% drop ($371 million against $1,671 million) in profits for Q3 against last year with a first nine month drop of 26% (£3.1 billion as opposed to $4.2 billion). Despite increasing box traffic by 16% in the quarter to 2.1 million forty foot equivalent units (FFE) this was not enough to offset the impact from declining freight rates (down 12% on average) and a one year fuel price hike of almost 50% leading to a loss for the period of $297m (previous profit $1,028m). Despite this Maersk has launched their daily guaranteed arrival Asia to Europe service in an attempt to corner that market, driven no doubt by their commitment to increasing the size of their fleet, a strategy devised in more bountiful times.

Maersk Tankers continued to face difficult market conditions and posted a loss of $37m and, with overcapacity in crude and product carrying activity likely to continue, the future is not bright. However Maersk point out any gas carrying capacity is positively influenced by limited new supply. Maersk FPSO's and Maersk LNG had full vessel utilization during Q3 and posted a profit of $59 million but last month an agreement was signed to sell Maersk LNG for $1.4bn on a cash and debt free basis yet the company says this will not have significant impact on the Group's profit.