Glencore leaves guidance unchanged, despite output fall

Glencore reiterated 2023 production guidance on Wednesday, despite a fall in copper and zinc output.

Updating on full-year 2022 production, the commodities giant said cobalt production from its own sources jumped 40% to 43,800 tonnes, boosted by the restarting of the Mutanda mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while nickel strengthened 5% to 107,500 tonnes. Coal production rose 6% to 110m tonnes.

But copper production fell 12% to 1.06m tonnes and zinc production declined 16% to 938,500 tonnes. Copper and zinc production was impacted by asset sales, operational issues at the Katanga open-pit mine in the DRC and supply chain headwinds in Kazakhstan.

Gold production fell 18%, and silver by 25%.

Chief executive Gary Nagle said: "Overall, 2022 production volumes were in line with our revised guidance from October, with final quarter sequential production increases delivered across most of our key commodities.

"During the year, however, we saw a mixed overall production performance."

Despite that, Glencore left its 2023 production guidance, which it last trimmed in December, unchanged. It is expecting to produce around 1.04m tonnes of copper in the current year, 38,000 tonnes of cobalt and 950,000 tonnes of nickel.

Shares in the blue chip rose 1% to 545p as trading got underway.