Glencore Plc kept a pledge to produce less metal following last year’s price rout and maintained its earnings outlook for the trading unit.
Zinc output slid 28 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to 257,100 metric tons, the Baar, Switzerland-based company said in a statement on Wednesday. Copper production fell 4 percent even as South American output rose, while the firm mined 17 percent less coal. It said it’s sticking to previous output forecasts for all commodities, except oil.
“Volumes in-line with expectations and maintaining guidance is reassuring that the group is in control of its actions,” Heath Jansen, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in London, said in an e-mailed note.
Some of the biggest miners have been forced to shutter unprofitable operations, trim costs and sell assets to reduce debt in response to slowing demand from top user China. Shares of the firm, led by billionaire Ivan Glasenberg, have surged in London this year after ending 2015 as the second-worst performer in the FTSE 100 Index.
Glencore has previously said it will reduce copper output by about 7.5 percent this year and cut zinc supply by a quarter. The output cuts reflect a “disciplined approach to supply at low points in the commodity cycle,” it said in the statement.
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