COPENHAGEN, Nov. 14 (Reuters) – Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk reported a deeper-than-forecast net loss for the first nine months of the year, hit by a global slump in freight, and said it would lose $1 billion in 2009.

The full-year 2009 outlook, unchanged from three months ago, puts Maersk on track for its first yearly loss on record as container shipping rates and volumes have plunged in the global economic downturn.

Net losses at the owner of the world's biggest container shipping line amounted to 3.86 billion Danish crowns ($778 million) in January-September, against a profit of 17.69 billion in the same period last year.

The loss was 16 percent bigger than the average forecast of 3.33 billion crowns in a Reuters poll of analysts, but was within the range of estimates.

Maersk's oil and gas operations made profits, but those were wiped out by the shipping business, as the drop in world trade kept freight rates and volumes low.

''The outlook for the result for 2009 is unchanged compared to the statement in the (half-year) interim report 2009, thus negative in the order of $1 billion,'' A.P. Moller-Maersk said in a statement on Thursday.

Average container shipping rates in the fourth quarter are expected to be slightly above the third-quarter level, while volumes are expected to be somewhat lower due to seasonal fluctuations, Maersk said.

Freight rates for Maersk container vessels in the first nine months of 2009 were 30 percent lower than the same period last year and the fleet's volumes 5 percent lower, Maersk said.

Rates for its tanker activities were ''considerably lower'' than in the first nine months of 2008, it said.

The trillion-dollar shipping industry carries around 90 percent of the world's traded goods by volume, and many analysts look to seaborne activity for signs of economic recovery. The global economic crisis has prompted shipping lines to cut freight rates and capacity.

Chief Executive Nils Smedegaard Andersen told Reuters that average third-quarter freight rates remained below average rates in the first half of 2009, and he said container and tanker shipping would remain under pressure in 2010.

''Our expectation is that the container market and the tanker market, the shipping industry in general, will remain under pressure in 2010,'' he said.