Maersk CEO: low oil price may lead to closures

Copenhagen

AP Moller-Maersk's Maersk Oil unit would have to close some sites and cut operating costs if the oil price remains at its current level, the group's CEO said in an interview in Danish daily Politiken on Tuesday.

Nils Smedegaard Andersen said that if the oil price stays around US$60 per barrel it would reduce revenue in the oil unit by a third from the level of 2013. The current oil slump has almost halved prices since June. "As all costs, except taxes, are fixed it is obviously something we have to take very seriously. And we would have to do some things," Mr Andersen said.