Maersk supports imports, distribution of Covid medical aid in India

May 28, 2021: A.P. Moller – Maersk (Maersk) transported more than 6,000 oxygen concentrators, 500 oxygen cylinders, 60 cryogenic oxygen tanks, and several medical supplies and ventilators into India through its ocean and air freight solutions for various institutions and corporates contributing to medical relief activities.

Maersk has offered its ocean transportation service to institutions and organisations participating in medical relief at a nominal rate of $1 per container. All commercial air freight shipments facilitated by Maersk India are being done on a zero-profit basis.

The challenge of transporting the oxygen to medical facilities posed a roadblock due to a lack of cryogenic oxygen tanks that are required for transporting the medical oxygen.

“At this time, Maersk stepped in and through its network-connected the sellers of such tanks and oxygen concentrators from around the world to the organisations that were willing to lease or buy them in India,” reads the release.

“Maersk India team worked relentlessly to put everything into action – from enabling charter planes to rapid clearances of emergency cargo to setting up visibility dashboards for transparency across different stakeholders involved in the transportation of the goods,” the statement reads.

Vikash Agarwal, managing director, Maersk South Asia, said,” 15 of our top executives from different functions voluntarily got together in the early days of the second wave and put together ‘Project Oxygen War Room’, or POWR as they called it, to help society fight the virus. The team went far beyond their day-to-day jobs to create a platform for buyers to meet sellers and implemented logistics for the medical aid coming into India. They worked relentlessly to put everything into action – from enabling charter planes to rapid clearances of emergency cargo to setting up visibility dashboards for transparency across different stakeholders involved in the transportation of the goods.”

Agarwal added, “The logistics activities undertaken by Maersk in order to support the medical aid into the country involve facilitating shipments coming in from countries such as Ireland, Finland, China, Germany, U.A.E., Qatar, Israel, South Africa and Singapore with more shipments from China, Turkey and Dammam still in progress.”

Arvind Ambo, head of chemicals vertical, Maersk South Asia and project leader for supporting the medical aid coming into India noted, “The last 5 weeks have been the perfect opportunity for us at Maersk to make an impact along with our core value of ‘Constant Care’. We are putting together the most complex pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in order to support Indian society. The situation in India has led a lot of organisations that are not well-versed with the complexities of global supply chains to take up this humanitarian task and it was our goal to handhold them through this journey.”