JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Full-year 2023 production guidance of London- and Johannesburg-listed diversified mining and marketing company Glencore remains largely in line with previous guidance.

An exception is nickel, guidance for which has been reduced to reflect maintenance outages at the Sudbury smelter in Canada and a longer than expected recovery from 2022 strike action at Raglan in Canada, together with a lower full-year revision for Koniambo Nickel mine in New Caledonia.

Own sourced nickel production of 68 400 t was a 16% lower 13 200 t than in the first nine months of last year, primarily reflecting higher third-party production versus own-sourced, in large part necessitated by the strike at Raglan mine in 2022.

Ferrochrome production of 873 000 t was a 21% lower 237 000 t owing to additional smelter off-line days during the three-month high electricity demand winter season, a period of elevated power prices, as well as load curtailments in South Africa. Chrome ore mining production is expected to be only modestly below 2022 levels, however.

Over the first nine months of the year, production performance from the company’s underlying base business was described by Glencore CEO Gary Nagle as being solid, with key copper, coal and zinc assets performing in line with expectations and previously communicated guidance.

In the marketing segment, Glencore continues to expect adjusted earnings before interest and tax to be above the top end of its yearly $2.2-billion to $3.2-billion long-term guidance range. A likely outcome, the company stated, is within the previously communicated $3.5-billion to $4-billion range.

Own sourced copper production of 735 800 t was 5% lower than the comparable 2022 period on the sale of Cobar in June and lower copper by-product production outside the copper department.

Also in line with the first nine months of last year was own sourced cobalt production of 32 500 t.

Own sourced zinc production of 672 100 t was 4% lower than the comparable 2022 period, reflecting mainly the disposals of South American zinc operations and the closure of the Matagami operation in Canada, offset by stronger production from Kazzinc (Zhairem) in Kazakhstan, and Antamina in Peru.

Coal production of 83.9-million tonnes was broadly in line with the comparable 2022 period. South African thermal coal production of 13.3-million tonnes was 5% higher on improved productivity.

Changes in guidance mainly reflect nickel being down 9% and ferrochrome being down 8%.

The emphasis that Glencore is placing on the circular economy was highlighted again at last month’s FT Mining Summit in London, amid Glencore taking several steps along the busying material recovery road through the establishment of localised circular supply chain partnerships to increase material availability in a world where environmental protection is becoming paramount.