JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Commodity market fundamentals are improving against a backdrop of better than expected demand and limited, if any, inventory build through the trough of the cycle, diversified mining and marketing company Glencore said on Thursday.
This comes against the background of the London-, Hong Kong- and Johannesburg-listed company reporting 18% higher earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) at $10.3-billion, 41% lower capital expenditure to $3.5-billion and operational unit cash cost performance in zinc at a negative –5c/lb.
The company, headed by CEO Ivan Glasenberg, also succeeded in managing down its full-year unit copper cost to 87c/lb, nickel to 265c/lb and thermal coal to $39/t with an $18/t margin.
“We believe we’ll maintain these low costs going into 2017,” Glasenberg told journalists during a conference call in which Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online participated – and perhaps do even better with its coal margins.
Mining analysts at Jefferies described Glencore’s results as “excellent” with their counterparts at Bernsteins commenting on the defining feature of the numbers being “the strong cash flow.”
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