Danish oil group and shipping company AP Moller-Maersk is in talks with US plane maker Boeing about developing biofuels for planes as well as ships, a senior executive of AP Moller told a newspaper in an interview.

The executive, AP Moller vice president Bo Cerup-Simonsen made the remarks to Danish newspaper Berlingske which were published on Monday.

"We have begun a dialogue with Boeing on the use of biofuels to see whether there could be any synergies between the air and the shipping industries," the Danish daily newspaper quoted Cerup-Simonsen saying.

"We want to prepare our ships to sail on biofuels," he added.

"But we must see the usefulness of co-operation from project to project, to find out if there is anything that can be transferred between the two industries," Cerup-Simonsen said.

The paper reported that both Boeing and Maersk were highly interested in getting a co-operation agreement in place.

Currently the Danish group was considering whether it should go with Boeing on a concrete research project on biofuel.

One vision as that the two groups share costs as the gate, with Boeing then getting the finer jet diesel oil, while Maersk would get the heavier biofuel for its tankers and containers.