jones speaks, page-29

gabriel - maybe Glencore, see last two sentences below.

one can only hope!

Glencore flying high

Kristie Batten
Friday, 26 August 2011

SWISS commodities giant Glencore International has posted first-half revenue of $US92.1 billion ($A88 billion), 32% up on the same period last year, and says it plans to rapidly grow its iron ore business.



Glencore chief Ivan Glasenberg

Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was $3.84 billion, while earnings before interest and tax was $3.3 billion, up 50% on the first half of 2010.

Income before significant items rose 57% to $2.57 billion, while income before attribution jumped 58% to $2.67 billion.

Cash generated by operating activities before working capital increased 37% to $2.47 billion.

Glencore went public in May after a $10 billion initial public offering and will post a maiden dividend of 5c per share.

For the metals and minerals marketing division, EBIT was $633 million, in line with last year.

Copper production from the company?s operations increased by 29% to 144,000 tonnes, while zinc production rose 27% to 267,000t.

Glencore chief executive officer Ivan Glasenberg told journalists and analysts that the company had the highest pipeline of growth of any mining company, targeting 50% copper equivalent growth by 2014.

?We?re growing at about 27 per cent per year, which really is an industry leader,? he said.

Glencore will also consider acquisitions in order to drive growth.

?We?ll always act opportunistically,? Glasenberg said.

?We may not be over-bullish on a particular commodity ? let?s just use an example such as nickel ? but [we will act if] suddenly an opportunity presents itself in nickel or a company wants to dispose of their nickel assets.?

On nickel, earlier this week Glencore announced a $1 billion cash buyout of its Australian 60% joint venture partner Minara Resources earlier this week.

?It was a complicated joint venture structure,? Glasenberg said.

?We believe the pricing is favourable at these levels so therefore it made good sense to clean up the structure and put it all under the control of Glencore so we didn?t have to bother with the joint venture structure.?

Glencore reiterated its desire to become more active in the iron ore market and recently signed an offtake agreement with Perth-based Mount Gibson Iron to purchase 48% of production from the Extension Hill mine.

?We continue to want to grow that part of the trading business and any iron ore mines that are being developed, we?re trying to get the agency agreement or equity type positions with them,? Glasenberg said.

?Unfortunately in the first half we didn?t increase our volumes as much as we would have liked but as you know the major suppliers who have supplied us in the past were tight in the first half of the year because they were struggling to meet the existing commitments, so there wasn?t enough free-traded iron ore.?

Glasenberg said the company was also planning acquisitions within the iron ore sector.

?You will see announcements in the future,? he said.