Looking back On that historic day, way back in February of 1913, Laura Maersk carried 2,800 tonnes of cargo with just four hatches; the engine had three cylinders, 1,400 HP and a speed of up to eight knots. In terms of size, she was just 14m wide, 97.7m long and 6.15m deep. With a crew of 25 that included four engineers, Laura Maersk was built to trade with Brazil and was known for transporting bulk cargo such as grain, timber and coal at the time. It was not for another 81 years when Maersk Line’s first-ever container ship Maersk Santos arrived at Santos port in 1994, representing the start of a new era for Maersk Line in Brazil. In 2000, for example, the beef industry used only open cargo ships; today they have completely migrated to refrigerated container cargo to transport goods worldwide. This same trend is now starting with the grain, fertilizer, mineral and metal industries. The arrival of Laura Maersk and Maersk Santos highlight some of the key changes in Brazil’s evolving global trade story. Today in the latest trend, metal and fertilizer producers, like beef companies more than 10 years ago, are increasingly turning to containers as a means of reaching new markets for the first time. About Maersk Line: • Maersk Line is investing USD 2.2bn in 16 new ships specially designed to visit Brazil’s shallow-water ports. Fourteen are currently in operation. • Maersk Line transported 183 million tonnes of cargo in 2011 and is the largest container carrier in the world. • Maersk Line has a 15% share of the container shipping market in Latin America. About A.P. Moller-Maersk Group: • A.P. Moller-Maersk is currently investing more than US$9bn in Latin America. • The group has a total 6,800 employees in LatAm and 117,000 worldwide with more than 2,000 in Brazil. • A.P. Moller-Maersk is present in more than 140 countries around the world. • The company, which is also engaged in oil and gas production, towage and emergency services at sea, oil drilling, and tankers, focuses heavily on safety and training of its highly-skilled staff as well as sustainability. Source: Maersk Line |