Maersk’s environmental agenda will be driven by customers over administrations, amid the increasing uncertainty surrounding government commitments, particularly the US Trump administration, to green policies.
At an event marking the launch of Maersk’s latest dual-fuel vessel, Adrian Maersk, chief commercial officer Karsten Kildahl said: “We are not so concerned by what an administration says, rather we have made our focus the concerns of our customers.”
He added: “The fact is we have plenty of customers who buy green fuel, Nike in the US for instance, and we can use these fuels on the transpacific routes, although we are not doing so presently”.
Echoing Mr Kildahl, the carrier’s president of its North America region, Charles van der Steene, said the challenge in the US was “uncertainty”.
But, he added: “This has been the rule for the last decade, and if you look at this space the customers we have are unwavering in their commitment to ‘green’. Regardless of the political environment, the green transition is still heavily progressing”.
Asked whether administration hostility to certain fuels could put the Gemini Cooperation hub and spoke model at risk, by reducing access to methanol, Mr Kildahl said it was not an issue.
He explained: “On the Europe-Asia rotation, we can bunker in Rotterdam, sail to China, and then on to Singapore, where we top up to get back to Europe.”
Added to this, Mr van der Steene said, regardless of the administration, Maersk remained confident it would be bunkering green fuels in the US, and stressed the level of commitment from customers on this front.