Comment / Analysis: Customers set to pay bill for greener AP Møller-Mærsk

Quietly, on a mid-summer morning, the management of AP Møller-Mærsk (APMM) talked up the half-year results as it prepared to tackle its biggest challenge: protecting the group’s underlying adjusted profits and cash balances from exogenous shocks and other key challenges, including the upcoming 0.5% sulphur cap from January 2020. APMM says it’s ready, of course.

Its core container shipping unit and chief revenue-driver, Maersk Line, would start buying more expensive fuel towards “the end of Q3 and in Q4, impacting working ...