Talk:Maersk/Archives/2014

A.P.Møller sold Mærsk Air

Mærks Air was sold, so I guess this page needs an update.

see 30 June 2005 in the article. what update?

That's not how the page looked when I looked at it. It all looks right now.

Units and acronyms

I noticed that several units used to measure size, volume and masses and acronyms are not defined or linked to their definition. These include tdw, TEU, cbm and LNG. I've added links to TEU and LNG and a definition of the acronym tdw (tonne dead weight). However, I couldn't find any explanation on the internet for cbm; but considering it is being used in conjunction with LNG ships, I guess it means cubic meters, in which case I suggest to replace it with m³, which is easier to read. Could someone confirm my interpretation? Glloq 12:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Number of container vessels

"6000 (+) owned & chartered container vessels" seems a little high. The Maersk Line website lists "500 vessels". Even if this is just their owned vessels, I highly doubt they have 5500 chartered vessels. Perhaps this should read "600 +"? --Lest69 05:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

A quick question from a non-Danish speaker. How do you promounce 'Maersk'? Indisciplined 19:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC) Simple way is MERSK

Without using IPA symbols, it's something like "Mairsk". The "æ" is pronounced somewhat like the "ai" in "air" or "lair". --dllu 10:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Culture in an International Company

In recent times APM Maersk has acquired several companies and in the shipping side Safmarine, Sealand and lately P&O Nedlloyd. This has led to Maersk line coming under pressure to recognise that there are indeed non Danes in this world that know what they are doing and in fact some areas of the shipping business that are not controlled from Copenhagen are proving to be truly good investments and performing really well.

A crack in the Danish armour and from what can be seen the signs of change are emerging with Maersk Line having to take on a more customer friendly approach as to the pure operational expert approach of the past. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Downr (talk • contribs) 20:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Clarifications

Cbm is, as indicated, short for Cubic Meters. This unit is often used as an indication of loading capacity for gas tankers.

TDW is Tonnes Dead Weight, an indication of how many tonnes of cargo, fuel reserves, engine spare parts, food supplies etc. a ship is carrying. When used as seen in this article, TDW refers to the ship's maximum TDW, i.e. the maximum loading capacity.

With regards to the "6000 vessels" issue, this is most likely a typo. The company itself states, not only on it's home page, but also in company publications, that it controls about 500 vessels, including chartered units.

With regards to the culture of the company, it is wrong to asume that Maersk has not acknowledged the abilities of non-danish companies until the recent purchase of the mentioned three other shipping companies. Long before the aquisition of these companies, Maersk had opened offices in a number of countries outside Denmark, for instance USA, Singapore and England, manned with personnel from the respective country. Vinzent82 22:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Redirected Maersk Line here

The Maersk Line page was basically the old P&O Nedlloyd page with a Maersk Line title. I reverted the P&O Nedlloyd page back to it's own page (as the SeaLand page is) and redirected Maersk Line here as majority of the History section on this page is Maersk Line content. The Maersk Line section under Organization could use some beefing up, but overall I think this a lot clearer and easier to navigate. Fire away if any disagreements. Thanks. Jawsdog 19:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

This is totally crazy

75% of the section "Maersk Line, Limited" is a diatribe under the subheading "U.S. Military contracting", with unbelievable phrases like "enjoyed sustained, escalating growth during the Vietnam conflict" and "have been keen customers of the U.S. Department of Defense"! (Customers? I thought the U.S. Dept. of Defence's business was to wage war, not service customers!) There is a table of numbers making a big deal out of Mærsk doing $500 mil. worth of business for the US military, despite this being only 2% of Mærsk's worldwide shipping business, and only 1% of their total revenue. http://shareholders.maersk.com/en/FinancialReports/InteractiveReport/uk_03.htm

This is followed by a section "Maersk: political influence", with phrases like "disproportionate influence on Denmark's economic, political and social development" and "Cooperation with the Pentagon reaches a new high point with Maersk's unswerving support of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the particularly lucrative contracts signed in August 2002, prior to the actual declaration of war".

On the other hand, Mærsk's energy-related activities, which provided 15% of their total revenue and an amazing 62% of their profit in 2006, is described with one sentence containing 13 words! ("Maersk Oil - Engaged in exploration for and production of Petroleum and Natural Gas".)

Finally, almost all of the references look like they're politically-slanted articles critical of Mærsk. Reading this article you'd never get the idea that most Danes are proud of having a world-class company based here.

Unless someone objects I'm going to throw out a lot of this nonsense tomorrow. Please discuss here if you disagree. Thanks. --RenniePet 18:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Objections · Rather than "throw(ing) out this nonsense" and adding an irrelevant Danish pride factor (interesting PoV's, all of this) you should rather

• spend time on building the 13-word section which you find lacking in content. That would be constructive indeed.
• remember to take into account that
  • the Christian Science Monitor, Reuters, the Military Sealift Command and the Copenhagen Post (not to mention Bloomberg) are hardly what one might consider as publishers of "politically-slanted articles";
  • the Corp Watch article was co-authored by a woman who, on another occasion, won the Danish equivalent of the Pulitzer, as well as a journalist at so mainstream an entity as al-Jazeera;
  • a journalist whose work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, New York Times and on ABC and PBS might be worth listening to;
  • the 2004 book Mærsk · manden og magten, co-authored by journalists at mainstream newspapers Politiken and Jyllands Posten, is already at its 4th or 5th re-print, a feat by Danish standards.
• Another constructive attitude from your side, as you seem to understand Danish, might be to read this 488-page book and enrich the article with your findings there.

· Michel 18:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposal · I think the most constructive approach would be to leave any correctly cited material and work on additions to the undeveloped sections.194.72.73.131 19:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Michel and 194.72.73.131. Hope there are others who also feel like presenting their opinion here.

Just one point from me right now: My understanding is that it is OK to be POV here on the discussion page - it is the article that should be NPOV. I had never considered "adding an irrelevant Danish pride factor" to the article, just removing most of the slanted critical stuff and rewriting some of it in more neutral terms. --RenniePet 19:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Objection: Calm down! Every multinational company cited in Wikipedia (especially those with military ties such as Halliburton) has a section with "criticisms". This is healthy...and the percentage of space dedicated to the criticism absolutely does not have to equal the percentage of revenue brought in from the criticized parts of the business. (And let's not forget that while the US Dept of Defense business may make up only 2% of the total shipping business, these no-bid contracts bring in disproportionatly large amounts of profit compared to Maersk's commercial customers) Instead of attacking how much space is devoted to the criticism, and how little space is devoted to the energy portions of the business--why not provide more information about the Maersk Oil and Gas or perhaps re-organize the criticism into a "criticisms" section much like other companys' articles? In addition, as previously stated, the entries in question are all properly cited and cannot be removed simply because you feel some sense of nationalism toward the company which is no doubt a point of pride for some Danes. (I'm sure Halliburton is a point of pride for some Americans) But Wikipedia does not exist to glorify nor slander these organizations based on what some may think)

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whoasuckaa (talk • contribs) 05:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC) 

Calm down? Calm down? Calm down?

OK, OK, I'm perfectly calm now.

I'll do as suggested and combine the critical stuff into one section under "Controversies", and rewrite it to remove the most blatant POV stuff like "Cooperation with the Pentagon reaches a new high point with Maersk's unswerving support...". (The sited source says nothing of the kind, it is a US Navy web page that just says that Maersk has been awarded a contract.)

As for adding to the rest of the article, I'll see what I can do, but it will be a long-term project as I don't really have the time.

Are there any objections to moving the rather long "History" section onto a separate page, and just having a short history in the current article?

--RenniePet 18:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I've now done some of this, but don't have time for more right now.

Removed the reference to Sea-Land and the Vietnam war - that doesn't have anything to do with Mærsk. (Put it on the Sea-Land page, maybe?)

I've also removed some other stuff that was unsourced or irrelevant.

There are still two paragraphs that I haven't really examined. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

--RenniePet 20:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned in my "edit summaries", I've simply discarded a reference regarding WW II. That was 65 - 70 years ago, and can't be considered relevant for the current company. It would be like criticising a person for what their grandfather or grandmother did. (Sounds almost Biblical - "the sins of the fathers pass to the third and fourth generation...")

You may not know it, but there is and always has been a strong continuity in Mærsk, not least because the current "man at the helm", as we say in Danish, is now well past 90 years old and was fully active in the company 60-70 years ago. Having moved to New York, he actually took part in what was described in the bit you removed, with the full understanding of his father (not his grand-father!) whose companies collaborated with Nazi Germany. So I suggest that you put that bit back, thank you. Actually, the current head's own personal history does not make “the extent of these contracts (...) surprising” in the least. What is surprising, rather, is that contracts at all should be taken away, or not granted, but that IMO is because the US neocons only know (knew?) how to court their close friends and not the real friends of the US (such as Mærsk), as the palaeocons used to, sort of. So that "surprising" bit should also go away.

I'm also discarding a vague reference, "Press Release from Coalition Provisional Authority (South), Basra, Iraq, 7/10/2003", with no on-line link. How can anyone know what it's supposed to mean?

It means that it's just that, an offline source just as much as a book is. The file is called PR22med_supplies7oct03.pdf and has been removed from the net, apparently. Not vague, but dated 7/10/2003. Here's the text, as good as Acrobat Reader will allow me to transfer it:

Press Release from Coalition Provisional Authority (South), Basra, Iraq CPA (South)

Press Release

Date: 7 October 2003 Ref.: PR022

From: Press and Public Affairs, CPA (South)

Subject: US Marine Corps donate $1m worth of medical supplies for southern hospitals

Timing: Immediate

More than sixty (60) pallets of free medical supplies, worth around $1 million, donated by the US Marine Corps (USMC), have now been distributed to hospitals and primary care centres throughout the four southern provinces.

These medical supplies were surplus to the needs of the USMC, and became available owing to the reduction in the numbers of US Marines in Kuwait and Iraq. Staff on the CPA (South) Health Team were able to make use of contacts in the Coalition Forces in the south, and were able to select the supplies that would be of use in the south.

To transport the goods into Iraq, the Kuwait-based Humanitarian Operations Centre (HOC) approached a number of carriers before selecting the Danish-based transport company Maersk Sealand to undertake the work. Maersk, with the help of a local Kuwait transport company, overcame significant challenges to recover the supplies from the USMC and deliver them intact to the main Maersk warehouse in Iraq.

The supplies have now been distributed by the Iraq national medical company Kimadia to hospitals and medical centres throughout the four provinces of the :south.

Dr Abdul Bassett, director of the Basrah medical warehouse, said:

"Thanks to the generosity of the USMC we have a full warehouse and we are able to distribute much needed medical supplies to those that most need them. Some of the materials are very expensive and will be appreciated by doctors and medical staff throughout the south of Iraq."

Dr Raad, the Al Basrah Director-General of Health said:

"I have had the opportunity to examine the medical supplies and drugs donated by the USMC and I would like to put on record my personal thanks to the officers and men for this generous donation. It is worth remembering the lives that such essential supplies will save lives that otherwise would have been lost for lack of supplies.

“This is still a difficult time for doctors and hospital managers and the provision of so much material - much of it expensive and difficult to source through Kimadia - is a welcome boost to our health service."

Page 1 of 2

For further information

Poul Smidt

Director, Press and Public Affairs

CPA (South)

Tel: 00 1 703 692 1713 Satellite Telephone: 00 88 216 542 01688 Email: [email protected] d’Angelo

Press and Public Affairs Adviser

CPA (South)

Tel: 001 703 692 1713

Mobile: 00 965 911 7754

Satellite Telephone: 00 88 216 211 58216

Email: [email protected]

Thus, that ref. should come back too, thank you

· Michel (talk) 15:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Still three controversy references to be "processed", then I'll turn my attention to the rest of the article, although it will be a long-term slow-motion project. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RenniePet (talk • contribs) 00:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Michel, thanks for your comments.

I've added what I think is an informative and neutral couple of sentences about the Khor az-Zubayr mess. And now I don't feel motivated to do any more in this "Controversies" section.

As for your points:

• I still don't think it is relevant or fair to criticize a company for what they did 65-70 years ago. Companies change, and despite your opinion on Maersk's "continuity", no modern company that doesn't change and adapt to the rapidly changing world can be as successful as Maersk is. Companies that don't change are the ones that become failures. The current management wasn't even born when WW II started. Anyway, I don't have that book so I don't even know what the exact accusations are.

• As for my use of the word "surprising" regarding the contracts that Maersk has gotten from the U.S. Military, I'd have thought that if your agenda is to be critical of Maersk that it makes it sound better that they've gotten these contracts despite obstacles. (By the way, does anyone know if they prevailed in getting that law repealed? The fact the the latest figures have gone up would seem to indicate that.)

• Finally, I'm not sure what can be considered "controversial" or negative in that CPA press release that you were so kind to post. I see it as an indication of how nice Maersk was, shipping this free medicine to war-torn Iraq despite problems.

Anyway, no more from me in this section. You, and everyone else, are welcome to edit, of course. --RenniePet (talk) 18:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

US court case mentioned in "Controversies" section

"Anyway, no more from me in this section." - Well, I have one policy until I adopt a new one, as a famous Danish politician once said.

User:Jawsdog today elaborated on an item about a court case in the US, adding an (incorrect) link. I assume this is the correct link: http://www.bridgedeck.org/mmp_news_archive/2004/mmp_news040816-Spcl_Ed.html

After reading this through twice (it's not all that obvious), and doing some Google searches, I've come to the conclusion that this so-called controversy is mostly based on a misunderstanding by the Copenhagen Post journalist. Or maybe some Danish newspaper article that the Copenhagen Post copied its story from?

Anyway, here's my understanding:

• Maersk was not directly involved in the court case. It was a case between U.S. Ship Management (USSM) and U.S. Maritime Administration (MarAd), USSM having sued MarAd because MarAd had said it was OK for Maersk to take over direct management of the ships involved.
• USSM seems to have been (do they still exist?) some kind of shadow company that SeaLand created as part of the deal in selling itself to Maersk. Their only purpose was to provide temporary US ownership of the ships that were otherwise being sold to Maersk.
• USSM became a problematic business partner for Maersk. I'm basing this assumption on some Original Research, for example this web page: http://vlex.com/vid/18534600
• Maersk asked MarAd if it was OK to directly manage the ships, and thus get USSM out of the picture, and MarAd said OK. http://www.marinelink.com/Story/Maersk+to+Operate+MSP+Vessels-11336.html
• USSM then sued MarAd and started spreading nasty stories about Maersk in the hopes that would score points. Apparently it did with some gullable Danish journalist, but that's all they got out of it, they lost the court case.

I don't see anything here that needs to be included in a Wikipedia article about Maersk. --RenniePet (talk) 21:35, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• Confirm that was the intended link, and I agree with your comments. Given the nature of the business relationship and the political nature of the situation, I think the Copenhagen Post article was not very well researched or balanced in this case, particularly not mentioning that USSM was being paid by Maersk to operate their vessels at the time of the article. When Maersk petitioned to operate the vessels directly, USSM was placed in a vulnerable business situation which naturally led to a series of attempts to sway opinion on the situation (on both sides). Agree leave it off the main page as the main interest is with the DoD contracts, this being a sidebar. There is documentation here on the talk page now anyway for anyone who wants to read it. Jawsdog (talk) 01:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Blue Star Line

Redirects to Maersk Group, but there is no mention in either this article or on the history of Maersk Group article of the Blue Star line! Mjroots (talk) 18:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

This is still the case, which startled me when I wanted to look for some basic information on the line! Would anything on this page be usable as a source? squibix(talk) 16:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

POV pushing

I have tempered some of the POV-pushing and removed material whose links were either to the anti-corporate Corpwatch or weer sourced with articles that are no longer available. As well, the fact that Maersk carried an arms shipment into Iraq at the height of the Iran-Iraq war may be vaguely interestin, it seems, unfortunately, like routine business for a shipping company. As for "undue" influence on Danish politics, there should be some examples of Maersk flexing its muscle for its own interests. I've slapped a POV tag on this article, acnd Corpwatch as well.Spoonkymonkey (talk) 16:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I have removed this section, as it is poorly sourced and full of original research. If there is a notable controversy it should be easy to find good sources and add a well-written controversy section. Remember that this is an encyclopaedia - better to have no controversy section, than a section that is poorly sourced and full of original research. To give a few examples - the section "Political influence in Denmark" makes some rather ambiguous and broad claims, and the source given is just "Mærsk · manden og magten", is that a book, a webpage and where can one find it? The section "Other involvement in Middle East conflicts" has as its only source corpwatch, what means that this section should go into the garbage bin. The section "United States military contracting" mentions that Maersk ships for the US army, but that has caused a notable controversy is not shown at all. Afroghost (talk) 18:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"The section "Other involvement in Middle East conflicts" has as its only source corpwatch, what means that this section should go into the garbage bin."

no it means that you should tag the uncited assertions of fact with a "ref" tag. 67.49.0.138 (talk) 17:30, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Website

"External links" first website link: maersk.com. Infobox website link: maersk.dk. Should this be represented as a Danish or an international entity? --Ysangkok (talk) 19:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Piracy section is far too large

It makes no sense that a recent event is so heavy overexposed. This company has over 125 years history and over half over the history section is filled with information about the recent event. I think this article needs to be better balanced. Lindberg (talk) 22:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. A solution could be to move the piracy incident to a separate article. Vinzent82 (talk) 13:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)(talk) 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Sea-Land Corporation

redirects here, but there's no information at all.

Andrew Rodland (talk) 06:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

That's odd. Sea-Land was bought by Maersk, but I assume the brand name is still in use, and if it is not, that there is historical information? 82.180.29.126 (talk) 22:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Broken link

Note 16 (the link) seems to be broken (404). --Mortense (talk) 20:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)