Maersk is in talks with Denmark's largest energy company, DONG Energy, to merge their oil-and-gas businesses, according to a report from Reuters.
The move marks part of the ongoing restructuring led by chief executive Soren Skou at the world's largest publicly traded shipping company as it sheds multiple business lines in order to simplify. Maersk has already signalled that it will hive off its containership, tanker and offshore vessel lines into separate businesses, along with a separation of the the APM Terminals business.
Maersk Oil is a relatively small energy company focused on offshore drilling and producing 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. DONG Energy, too, is primarily focused on offshore oil and gas in the North Sea, producing about 89,000 barrels per day of oil and gas.
DONG is also a major operator of offshore wind farms. But DONG has said it wants to divest its oil and gas assets in favour of focusing on wind energy.
The combined Maersk-DONG could be worth some $10bn, Reuters said.
