Growth to meet customers' demand

24 January 2007 (Oslo and Copenhagen). Höegh Autoliners and A.P. Moller - Maersk through its subsidiary Maersk Shipping Singapore have today agreed that effective from 1 February 2007, they will enter into cooperation with their respective fleets of car carriers.

The cooperation will commercially operate the combined fleet of about 67 vessels globally under the name of Höegh Autoliners, from Höegh Autoliners offices in Oslo.

Höegh Autoliners and A.P. Moller - Maersk each remains individually responsible for the technical management and crewing of own vessels.

The new cooperation is established to provide increased capacity, faster transit times and higher frequency to meet customers requirements. The Car carriers owned by Maersk Shipping Singapore will enter the cooperation as time charter commitments expire.

Strategy is carried on

Höegh Autoliners’ strategy is to grow with its global customers and offer worldwide transportation services with basis in the core competencies as a port to port transportation provider and to be a network partner providing effective logistics solutions.

“Our customer oriented business approach remains at the core of the business model and our customers’ cargo projections motivate our ambitions to grow,” says Thor Jørgen Guttormsen, CEO of Höegh Autoliners. “The cooperation with A.P.Moller - Maersk improves our ability to meet our customers’ requirements for services and transportation volume.”

Maersk Shipping Singapore owns a fleet of Ro/Ro car carriers which historically have been charterered out to the Car Liner Operators. “We are looking forward to enter into this cooperation with Höegh Autoliners. We believe in Höegh Autoliners’ customer oriented strategy and expect the cooperation will make a strong product even stronger. We believe we can contribute positively to the cooperation based on our Groups capabilities within global transport and logistics” says Søren Skou, Group Executive Board Member, A. P. Moller - Maersk .

Customer driven growth

The world production of factory new cars has grown steadily to about 62 million units in 2006. World car production is expected to continue growing to about 90 million units in 2015 representing an annual growth rate of 3 – 4%. Historically about 15% of the production volume is exported overseas.

In addition the globalisation of the car manufacturing industry has brought about structural changes to production models, which is affecting seaborne transportation positively resulting in additional growing demand for transportation services.

On this background Höegh Autoliners expects the market for Ro/Ro car carriers to remain strong and has experienced growing interest from customers to secure future transportation capacity.

Höegh Autoliners

Höegh Autoliners started its Ro/Ro car carrier operation in 1969 and deploys some 55 vessels in its global trade systems which are managed from a worldwide network of 22 offices. The fleet consists of owned and chartered vessels. Main customers are major manufacturers of new cars and heavy machinery and rolling goods and Höegh Autoliners carried about 1.8 million car equivalent units (CEU) in 2006.

Höegh Autoliners is in the middle of a fleet expansion program and 15 more newbuildings already ordered will be delivered from 2007 to 2011.

See: http://www.hoeghautoliners.com

Maersk Shipping Singapore

Maersk Shipping Singapore owns a fleet of 12 Ro/Ro car carriers and have a number of New Buildings on order. Maersk Shipping Singapore is part of A.P. Moller - Maersk an international company of Danish origin widely recognized for its activities within shipping, energy, offshore, retail and industry. The A.P.Moller - Maersk group has more than 110,000 employees and offices in over 125 countries.

See: http://www.maersk.com

For further information contact:

- Höegh Autoliners, Thor Jørgen Guttormsen – CEO

Tel: +47 4003 9888

e-mail: thor.jorgen.guttormsen@hoegh.com

- A. P. Moller-Maersk Søren Skou – Group Executive Board Member

Tel: +45 3363 4800