UNDERGROUND

Glencore coal production powers on with Cerrejón buyout

GLENCORE’S strategic acquisition of the two thirds of the Cerrejón coal project in Colombia it did not already own from BHP and Anglo American in January has caused its coal production to soar 14% in the six months to June.

Glencore has acquired 100% of the Cerrejón project in Colombia.

Glencore has acquired 100% of the Cerrejón project in Colombia.

The company reported coal production of 55.4 million tonnes for the half year.

On a like for like basis, overall group production only declined 500,000t or 1% during the period.

However, Glencore warned the negative effect on volumes from the recent flooding event in New South Wales and associated delays in restoring mine production and logistics infrastructure had not yet been incorporated in its full year guidance for 2022 of 121Mt.

"We are still assessing the likely impact of the recent NSW flooding on estimated full-year production and sales volumes, reflecting that the main Newcastle export rail corridor was offline for about 12 days," the company said.       

"Higher numbers of COVID-19 cases in Australia through July also point to potential further disruption in H2."

Australian half yearly thermal and semi-soft coal production of 32.4Mt was 2.2Mt or 7% higher than H1 2021, mainly reflecting the reporting of additional attributable volumes from Glencore's managed operations, following the sell-down by various minority joint venture partners.

Australian coking production of 3.9Mt was 5% lower than H1 2021.

Turning to metals, Glencore's production of copper concentrates from Ernest Henry and Cobar for the half was 2% lower than the previous corresponding period at 18,800t.

At Mt Isa, Townsville and McArthur River, zinc in concentrates production was 11% lower at 276,000t.

Copper metal production was down 29% to 29,000t, lead in concentrates production was down 21% to 79,900t while silver production was 3% higher at 238,000oz.

Glencore's Murrin Murrin nickel project in Western Australia produced 171,000t of nickel metal for the half year - a 31% increase on the previous corresponding period. It also increased production of cobalt by 17% to 1400t.

 

   

 

 

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