SIMIC

"The biofuel is sourced from used cooking oil, but the problem is that the world doesn't eat enough french fries. We can't keep scaling it. If our growth rates continue, we will run out of cooking oil in one or two years," said Maersk CEO Soren Skou.

Maersk has pledged to cut its own carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. About 90 per cent of the goods across the globe are transported by the shipping industry, where Maersk accounts for 20 per cent of that total. The industry is responsible for two per cent of the world's CO2 emissions.

Maersk consumes 12 million tons of marine oil per year, about equal to all the oil produced in the world in one day.

In its plan to go green, Maersk is using biofuels and going forward plans to use more low-emission ships that run on green methanol.

"There will be more investments in the coming quarters. We will order some ships before the end of the year," said Mr Skou.

"So the ship technology is not the limiting factor, but the availability of the green fuels is. It's a new global energy system that needs to be built and that's a massive challenge," said Mr Skou.