1st Feb 2019 07:19
LONDON (Alliance News) - Glencore PLC on Friday reported strong increases in production in 2018, with copper, cobalt and nickel output rising by double-digits, though attributable oil output decreased.
Own-sourced copper production was up 11% in 2018 to 1.5 million tonnes, which mainly reflected the restart of Katanga's processing operations in late 2017. Copper sales in 2018 were around 22,000 tonnes lower than production due to timing of shipments, Glencore added.
Cobalt production jumped 54% to 14,800 tonnes, which the miner said mainly related to the Katanga mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"Katanga's current cobalt production is being temporarily stockpiled on site, pending introduction of a long-term solution to remove excess uranium levels in such cobalt," Glencore added.
Own-sourced zinc production was in line with a year ago at 1.1 million tonnes, with disposals of African zinc assets in August 2017 balanced out by the restart of mining at Lady Loretta in Australia,in mid-2018.
Own-sourced nickel production of 123,800 tonnes was up 13% on last year, while attributable ferrochrome production of 1.6 million tonnes was roughly the same as last year.
Attributable coal production of 129.4 million tonnes was up 7% on 2017, while oil entitlement interest production of 4.6 million barrels was down 8%.
The fall in oil output was due to Equatorial Guinea fields being in a period of natural decline, the FTSE 100 constituent said, though this was partly offset by an 11% increase in Chad production.
Glencore said it realised an average copper price of USD5,950 per tonne in 2018 and an average zinc price of USD2,836 per tonne.
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