News / Maersk hits back at 'misleading' and 'outdated' ETS rip-off claims

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Maersk has denied claims it is ripping off shippers by overcharging on EU ETS surcharges and refuted the Transport & Environment (T&E) study unveiled today, branding its findings “misleading”, and reliant on “flawed analysis” and “outdated surcharge estimates”.

The four largest European shipping lines – Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM – were named and shamed in T&E’s Profits Uncontained report, which claims millions of dollars in profits had been generated by overcharging customers for EU ETS compliance.

However, this afternoon Maersk issued The Loadstar with a statement in response, which referred to apparent “factors” above and beyond the ETS €/tonne calculation.

Maersk said: “We find it positive that the analysis demonstrates that there is a competition between shipping companies when it comes to the EU ETS cost. Overall, the analysis lacks many of the factors that affect EU ETS costs for shipping companies and therefore the surcharges. The methodology underpinning the analysis is flawed, which in turn leads to inaccurate conclusions that do not reflect reality in our industry.”

“Transport & Environment’s analysis uses a €90/tonne CO2 figure as a general ETS price for Maersk, even though the article it quotes clearly states that the figure is only for estimation purposes. No fixed price of €90/tonne CO2 has been announced. Instead, Maersk updates the emissions surcharge on a quarterly basis to ensure alignment to the latest EUA price.”

However, Maersk’s quarterly updates to its ETS charges would be insufficient to match the ever-changing carbon price, so this cannot alone refute T&E’s suggestion that commodity traders within Maersk game the system by buying low and selling high.

Maersk added: “A key feature in the analysis is the focus on selected trades. However, the analysis relies on outdated surcharge estimates for these trades. These older estimates reflect a higher EUA price, leading to higher costs.

“This, in turn, leads to the wrong conclusions when compared with the current levels. Newer surcharge estimates are available on Maersk.com and reflect lower EUA prices.”