MiningWeekly.com Audio Articles

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer unpacks the news of Royal Bafokeng Platinum’s R1.6-billion 98 MW solar power plant; Barrick's renewable energy benefits; and the growing renewables momentum.

The shift from linear to circular value chains has the potential to impact all aspects of mining and requires a rethink, Anglo American Platinum sustainable impact head Stephen Bullock has told a Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) webinar.

In a presentation on the circular economy – which favours activities that preserve value in the form of energy, labour, and materials ­– Bullock said mining needed to rethink more efficient operations by addressing the value loss through byproducts of business processes across energy emissions, water and waste.

“We've got to look at new products and services, rethinking the design lifecycle and end-of-life stage of a product or service to optimise usage and close the loop.

“We've got to change ecosystem dynamics, collaborating and partnering with public and private sector peers to create an enabling environment for collective transformation,” he told the webinar in which Mining Weekly participated.

Involved was the decoupling of growth from resource use, with waste in conventional linear processes needing to be identified across the four key dimensions of wasted resources, such as renewable energy, wasted capacity, wasted lifecycles, and wasted embedded value.

Earlier, the webinar heard from webinar chairperson and past SAIMM president Gordon Smith that environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability (ESGS) had assumed a new high level of importance to business and society in the wake of climate change, ever-widening inequality, global uncertainty and increasing economic risk.

Smith, who currently serves on the council and who is a founder member of the institute’s ESGS committee, said full membership of the SAIMM was now being opened to mining industry ESG practitioners, in line with the importance of ESG to the minerals industry.

The former Anglo American Platinum executive head: technical said that, as an institute, SAIMM saw it as a mandate to inform, educate and convene through dialogue and debate on what he described as “critical issues”.

The council has brought into being a committee with a mandate to guide, educate and inform its members of ESGS’s pillars, tenets and dimensions in mining and to be seen as thought leaders in its progressive evolution for the mining sector.

“Ultimately, ESGS, or responsible mining, needs to achieve the same status as safety and become a fundamental part of our mining DNA and the way we behave as professionals,” said Gordon,

In fulfilling its mandate, an ESGS webinar series has been established and an annual SAIMM Journal edition will be dedicated to ESGS papers, coupled with monthly commentary on ESGS-related themes, in addition to the normal conferencing activities.

The webinar heard from Bullock that total demand for resources is expected to reach about 130-billion tonnes by 2050, up from 50-billion in 2014 – an overuse of the earth's total capacity by more than 400%.

“In short, our economic growth trajectories are simply unsustainable, the world doesn't have enough resources," said Bullock.

“Interestingly, by 2030, there's going to be about 2.5-billion new consumers joining the middle class, and the more a society or a country has in the middle class, the higher the resource utilisation," he pointed out.

However, there were certainly opportunities amid global society being extremely wasteful, with 31% of food generated going to waste in the value chain, and about 30% of the value in steel being lost after its first phase of recycling.

The inefficiency numbers indicated that there are opportunities, with work done by the United Nations showing that the circular economy offers about a $4.5-trillion economic opportunity through society avoiding waste generation, stimulating new business growth, and creating the ‘green’ jobs that the circular economy presents.

Growth needed to be decoupled from resource use and waste in all forms eliminated.

He described the circular economy as being among the approaches to miti...

The African regions are continuing to excel on all fronts for Barrick, the large gold/copper miner that is benefitting from a stand-out performance in Tanzania and finding exploration in Mali and Senegal “a gift that keeps giving”, and which is being received with open arms in Pakistan.

Under the highly experienced leadership of Barrick’s South African-born CEO Dr Mark Bristow, Tanzania’s Bulyanhulu and North Mara mines have been completely redesigned and re-engineered into new mines. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The combined-complex now has tier-one potential ­after being at a virtual standstill when Barrick took over their management three years ago.

Bulyanhulu now has a 20-year-plus life and ramped-up North Mara is showing significant new opportunity.

In Mali, where Mining Weekly can recall the community ululating enthusiastically in honour of Bristow’s huge wealth-creation success in the region, the Loulo-Gounkoto that his discovery-and-development philosophy elevated from nothing, has once again put in its customary strong performance, despite being heavily exposed to higher fuel prices.

Importantly, Loulo-Gounkoto is on the way to trebling its solar power capacity to improve its energy source profile as well as decarbonise.

On the exploration front, the Loulo district, Mali, and across the river in Senegal “is the gift that keeps giving”, Bristow told Barrick’s dividend-yielding second-quarter results presentation, during which Bristow provided impressive future-forward responses to analyst questions.

Brownfield exploration is poised to replace Loulo-Gounkoto’s depleted ounces this year and across the border in Senegal, Barrick’s Bambadji and Bena permits host multiple targets that have stand-alone potential.

In Central Africa, Kibali in the Democratic Republic of Congo boosted quarter-two production to remain on track to achieve guidance, despite mill maintenance taking place in quarter one and shaft winder replacement coming up in quarter four.

Kibali is Barrick’s leader in renewable energy owing to its three hydropower stations, which are shielding it from the full effect of higher fuel prices ­– and, again, exploration is continuing to replenish the reserve base and raise new discovery possibilities.

At the halfway mark of the year, Barrick’s performance and prospects continue to show the steady progress it envisaged at the time of the strategic merger with Newmont, when the trajectory was radically changed and it started the journey towards a future-forward business.

On the copper front, Barrick’s Lumwana copper mine in Zambia increased its second-quarter production by 32% on higher grade ore and improved mill availability, Jabal Sayid in Saudi Arabia produced its first Saudi GM in line with Barrick’s policy of recruiting host-country nations, and Zaldivar in Chile was consistent.

Barrick has built a team and a structure capable of dealing with a range of global economic, social, and political challenges that are getting increasingly complex.

Its exploration teams continue to replenish depleted reserves.

It has expanded its footprint across nearly all the world’s gold and copper regions, with the Latin American region highly prospective for copper and gold discoveries, and Pakistan’s Reko Diq one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper deposits that has been on hold since 2011.

The Pakistan government has received Barrick “with great enthusiasm”, with the current Reko Diq conceptual mine plan based on four porphyry deposits within the Reko Diq project area.

The Tethyan Belt, in which Reko Diq is located, is described as being a highly prospective tectono-magmatic and metallogenic belt extending from Eastern Europe to South East Asia.

The project area has 14 separate Miocene age porphyry intrusions that provide long-term upside potential, and Reko Diq is expected to have a life of at least 40 years.

On every front, Barrick is closing in on its goal to become a valued mining company.

Its earnings we...

Platinum group metals (PGMs) mining company Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat) is looking to off-balance-sheet capital expenditure of R1.6-billion for a 98 MW solar power plant.

The photovoltaic (PV) plant will further buffer RBPlat and the region from load-shedding into the future should it prove economically viable, CEO Steve Phiri said during the JSE-listed company’s presentation of half-year financial results covered by Mining Weekly. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Construction of the modular PV plant is part of steady progress being made by RBPlat to embed incremental improvements in the business, along with the optimisation of Styldrift’s life-of-mine, improvements at the Maseve and Bafokeng Rasimone platinum mine concentrator plants, and the building of an overland conveyor to the Maseve concentrator.

For the PV plant, steady phase detailed design of the technical parameters is required, said RBPlat COO Neil Carr, who added that steps were being taken to obtain environmental impact assessment approvals over the next six months.

Sufficient land is available for the 98 MW capacity plant and the costs are indicated at about R1.6-billion capital spend, which will be off RBPlat's balance sheet

“We’ll be going to market to get third-party funders, who will construct and operate the plant in future,” Carr explained.

Fielding questions during question time was RBPlat investor relations head Lindiwe Montshiwagae, and in response to a question on local content, Carr said: “We’ll certainly have a lot of local content in the construction, when we’ll use local labour to capacitate our communities around our operations.

“I do believe a lot of key infrastructure, certainly energy inverters and potentially solar panels will have offshore content, but we’ll maximise local content to the best of our ability.

“I do believe that funding will be local. We’ll be going to local institutions to be the funding to construct, build and operate this PV plant.”

ROTSHIDZWA MANENZHE

In her maiden presentation of the financial results, new interim CFO Rotshidzwa Manenzhe said that since listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2010, RBPlat had not only assumed responsibility for generating returns to shareholders, but had also set out to build a business that benefits all stakeholders.

As a result, the financial results showed more than just the bottom line and included all the activities aimed at benefiting all stakeholders.

With 2022 characterised by operational challenges, declining PGMs prices, as well as inflationary pressures, Manenzhe described the half-year performance as reflecting RBPlat’s resilience to the lower basket price, which saw revenue declining by 14.7% to R8.2-billion.

Mainly owing to increased production volumes and inflation higher than the consumer price index, the cost of sales increased by 22.1% to R5.4-billion.

“There’s no doubt that, like many in the industry, our business has been impacted by the challenging market conditions, as well as global economic uncertainty, but despite these economic challenges, our balance sheet remains robust and our liquidity and funded position remain strong,” Manenzhe emphasised.

Glencore Alloys head Japie Fullard has hailed the new energy plan announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa as opening the way for the company to target bigger power projects.

“I must say that the President’s energy presentation is definitely something that is appealing to us,” said Fullard, who welcomed the removal of the 100 MW cap, as well as clarity around the ‘wheeling’ of renewable energy back on to the grid.

A couple of projects, already beyond prefeasibility stage, were being pursued “quite aggressively”, said Fullard, who also acclaimed the ‘wheeling’ insight provided during a Minerals Council South Africa session with Eskom group chief executive André de Ruyter.

“So, definitely, renewable energy for our ferroalloys business is on the cards,” added Fullard.

As reported by Mining Weekly, also forming part of Glencore Alloys decarbonisation commitments are on-site projects involving potential cogeneration, and off-site virtual power purchase agreement possibilities.

The cogeneration opportunity involves turning currently wasted operational offgas into electricity, which is now set to be coupled with on-site renewable energy and off-site virtual power plants.

The London- and Johannesburg-listed Glencore has a short-term target of a 15% reduction of total Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2026.

Glencore Alloys produces and markets chrome ore, ferrochrome and vanadium, and markets manganese ore and alloys.

Most of the world's ferrochrome is used in the production of corrosion-resistant steel, more specifically stainless steel.

South Africa’s ferrochrome industry as a whole employs 6 800 people directly, supports 68 000 jobs overall, contributes something like R40-billion to South Africa’s gross domestic product, pays R14-billion a year to State power utility Eskom, has pay-as-you-earn tax payments of R1.4-billion, buys 2.5-million tons of product a year from 20 South African reductant mines, and accords many millions of rands a year in social support and local enterprise development.

JUST ENERGY TRANSITION

Glencore CEO Gary Nagle said the company was embracing the prospect of assisting in the just energy transition towards a decarbonised future.

“In terms of our rundown of our South African coal operations and the just transition, we obviously will have plans in place for responsible closure of those coal operations as they run down, in terms of rehabilitation, retraining of workforce, community commitments and the like.

“When it comes to that part of the just energy transition, we certainly embrace our responsibilities. The investments that we’re making on the renewables side are just the start and there are many other things that we can and may do over time, which will continue to assist in the just transition towards South Africa’s decarbonisation,” Nagle said in response to Mining Weekly.

Gold and copper mining company Barrick has taken the lead in integrating the various aspects of environmental, social and governance (ESG) to ensure holistic and objective measurement, Barrick CE Dr Mark Bristow stated on Monday, when the New York- and Toronto-listed company reported strong second-quarter operating performance that generated $169-million free cash.

Barrick has launched a sustainability-linked credit facility, progressed its Scope 3 emissions reduction roadmap, received an award for the best community health outreach programme at North Mara mine in Tanzania, completed public hearings for Pueblo Viejo’s new tailings storage facility, and improved year-on-year water reuse and recycling

Bristow highlighted critical ESG scrutiny and sustainability disclosures as intensifying in a climate of scepticism about ‘greenwashing’.

Reviewing the quarter, which supported an unchanged dividend payout of $0.20 a share, Bristow said that Barrick’s annual industry-first sustainability scorecard continued to report the group’s performance transparently against a wide range of standard metrics, enabling the company to take the ESG lead.

“There are challenging times ahead, but Barrick faces them with strong and agile leadership, a robust balance sheet, solid life-of-mine plans, reliable cash flow and a strategy focused on sustainability and value creation,” added Bristow in a release to Mining Weekly.

A stronger second-quarter performance across the portfolio has kept Barrick on course to achieve its yearly gold and copper production guidance while continuing to progress its key growth projects.

Better-than-first-quarter gold production of 1.04-million ounces – driven by Carlin and Turquoise Ridge in the US, Veladero in Argentina, and Bulyanhulu and North Mara in Tanzania – is expected to grow further in the second half of the year. Copper production came in at 120-million pounds and the copper portfolio is delivering with growing prospectivity.

During the quarter, $182-million in shares were repurchased and remaining Kibali gold mine surplus cash repatriated from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Gold and copper production guidance remains and growth projects progressed, including the Pueblo Viejo expansion project in the Dominican Republic, which has the potential to extend mine life beyond 2040, with an average production of 800 000 oz/y.

In Nevada, the Goldrush production timetable is expected to be confirmed in the first half of 2023, while in Pakistan, finalisation of the Reko Diq project agreements are under way on what is one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper/gold deposits, with first production expected in 2027/28.

“On the back of our strong operating performance, we are once again able to provide a leading dividend yield to our shareholders, whilst still maintaining a strong balance sheet,” said CFO Graham Shuttleworth.

“We believe this continues to show the benefit of the dividend policy that we announced in February 2022, including the guidance it provides to our shareholders on future dividend streams,” added Shuttleworth.

EXPLORATION STRENGTHENED

Barrick is continuing to expand its global exploration footprint with a strengthened team. In North America, the search has extended from Nevada to Canada. The intensified exploration drive in Latin America has led to an entry into the Guiana Shield. In Africa and the Middle East, new projects have been initiated in Zambia, Tanzania and Egypt and the new Asia Pacific exploration team is making progress in Japan.

“Our geological teams now have strength in depth and we’re building a pipeline of high-potential managers and technical specialists. The highly experienced new appointees are already driving significant change and this renewed energy and focus is already delivering robust results,” said Bristow.

The Tanzanian government has recognised Barrick as its largest 2021 revenue contributor. Since taking control of North Mara and Bulyanhulu in September 2019, in-cou...

Zinc mining company Vedanta Zinc International (VZI) officially broke ground on its Gamsberg Phase II project on August 5.

The R7-billion investment in the expansion of the company’s opencast zinc mine is expected to create between 2 000 and 2 500 jobs during the construction phase and a further 800 to 1 000 permanent jobs at peak operation.

On October 25, 2018, Indian parent company Vedanta Resources pledged a total investment of R21-billion in the Gamsberg mine and associated projects at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Annual Investment Conference.

Of the R21-billion, more than R6-billion was allocated towards completing Gamsberg Phase I, which more than tripled VZI’s production capacity from 75 000 t/y to 300 000 t/y and increased its staff complement to 2 700.

“The Gamsberg Phase II investment will positively contribute to the realisation of VZI’s vision of being a digitally advanced, integrated operation that will safely produce one-million tonnes a year while focusing on cost reduction.

“It will also create great opportunities for small business owners in the communities of Khâi-Ma and surrounding host communities from a business partnership point of view,” Vedanta subsidiary Hindustan Zinc CEO Arun Misra said.

The sod-turning ceremony on August 5, attended by Northern Cape Premier Dr Zamani Saul and Misra, took place where construction of the four-million-tonne-a-year plant will be starting over the next 18 to 22 months.

Once complete, the expansion will double Gamsberg’s yearly ore capacity to eight-million tonnes and will produce an additional 200 000 t/y of metal in concentrate.

“We have made good progress since the investment announcement three months ago. We have appointed a plant engineering, procurement and construction partner and placed an order for major equipment.

“In addition, we recently issued a R2.5-billion tender for a mining contract, which we expect to close over the next month. We are ready to start the real groundwork. The plot plan, process flow chart and the basic design are complete,” VZI executive director and CFO Pushpender Singla said at the sod-turning event.

Saul said the start of the project represented the tangible and practical implementation of a commitment that VZI made in 2018.

He added that the investment was located in the Namakwa region where a multinodal special economic zone was planned in partnership with VZI as the anchor investor, enabling the development.

“We expect that, in the next five years, when we look back, we will see a completely different Northern Cape and completely different Namakwa district as a result of investments of this nature,” he concluded.

Gold mining company AngloGold Ashanti on Friday declared an interim dividend of $121-million on 3% higher year-on-year production and a strong cash-flow improvement.

First-half production for the first six months of 2022 was 1.233-million ounces, with second-quarter output up 10% on strong contributions from Siguiri in Guinea (+21%), Cerro Vanguardia in Argentina (+17%), Sunrise Dam in Australia (+15%), Iduapriem in Ghana (+14%) and Tropicana in Australia (+14%), which offset lower production from Kibali in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Geita in Tanzania.

Ramping-up Obuasi in Ghana is on track to achieve the 240 000 oz to 260 000 oz guided for 2022.

Total cash costs for the first six months of 2022 were a 6%-higher $1 068/oz on inflation across several input categories, as well as larger royalty payments, with cost pressure partially offset by operating improvements and 10%-better underground grades. First-half all-in sustaining costs were $1 418/oz, compared with $1 333/oz for the corresponding period last year.

“The fundamentals continue to improve, despite the challenging cost environment,” AngloGold CEO Alberto Calderon stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

First-half adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation were $864-million, compared with $876-million for the first half of last year. Headline earnings for the first half of 2022 were $300-million, compared with $363-million, or $0.87 in the first half of last year.

Free cash flow increased to $471-million from an outflow of $25-million in the same period last year, with the balance sheet remaining flexible during an ongoing period of reinvestment in portfolio improvement.

The increase in free cash flow was supported by $549-million received from Kibali, with the $365-million cash acquisition of Corvus Gold establishing a presence in the Beatty district in Nevada , US, where production in three years’ time is expected to grow over several years to 300 000-plus ounces of gold a year for 20 years at all-in costs below AngloGold’s current average.

Even after funding the Corvus acquisition and paying the 2021 year-end dividend, current $2.6-billion liquidity includes cash of $1.3-billion, with a maturity of the $1.4-billion multi-currency revolving credit facility extended to 2027.

CAPITAL EXPENDITURE

Total half-year capital expenditure (capex) was 2% higher at $472-million, with sustaining capex rising 6% to $330-million.

Capex activities such as waste stripping at Tropicana (Havana) and Iduapriem (Cut 2) continued to progress. At Geita, the underground portal development at Geita Hill East progressed according to plan and mining operations continued to ramp up at the Nyamulilima openpit. In Brazil, investment to convert existing tailings storage facilities to dry-stack facilities at all mine sites continued, in a market characterised by increased competition for skills and engineering resources and the industry-wide requirements to meet regulatory deadlines relating to tailings facilities.

FULL ASSET POTENTIAL REVIEW PROGRAMME

The full asset potential review programme was initiated with the aim of understanding the full potential of each asset in the portfolio.

The programme requires a three-month assessment for each asset covering mine design and all key operating parameters and costs, which highlights any gaps between current - and best possible - performance.

The assessment helps to identify and prioritise the key improvement initiatives, which are then implemented over six to 24 months.

This process is owned and managed by the relevant site leadership team, and tracked until full value is delivered. This work has been initiated at selected sites in each jurisdiction, starting with the Sunrise Dam mine in Australia.

The Sunrise Dam assessment identified 33 improvement initiatives including a potential pathway to significantly increase the mineral resource and ore reserve, and step-change underground production to three-million-plus...

Gold mining company AngloGold Ashanti is firmly focused on operation performance and the recovery of cost competitiveness as it implements its full asset potential review programme, on which it will report at three-monthly intervals.

This was made clear by AngloGold Ashanti CEO Alberto Calderon on Friday a media briefing covered by Mining Weekly after the Johannesburg Stock Exchange company declared an interim dividend of $121-million on 3% higher year-on-year production and a strong cash-flow improvement.

On whether the company would be engaging in merger-and-acquisition activity and adding to the consolidation of the gold-mining industry, Calderon could not have been clearer when he said: “Nothing adds more value for us in the medium term than improving operational performance and recovering cost competitiveness versus our peers ­– and that's what we're focused on, and that's what we will continue to focus on.”

The company is targeting step-change in operational performance from its full asset potential programme, which began with the Sunrise Dam gold mine in Australia, where it has identified 33 improvement initiatives.

The biggest find at Sunrise is that the mineral resource can be increased by a million ounces this year through a push back of the Cleo open pit. At this stage, an increase in net present value of around A$300-million is envisaged.

“Going from underground to open pit in a way that makes economic sense requires some quite interesting and delicate analytics, and it's just because we had the whole team on the ground and had the analytics of our consultant that this idea came through,” Calderon explained.

The other ideas, which are far smaller in capital expenditure, are about increasing overall mine productivity from 2.5million tonnes of development productivity a year to three-million tonnes because of a myriad of changes in underground maintenance, in new fleet management systems and other types of initiatives.

Improving metallurgical recovery by 2% was again achieved by using analytics to optimise a set of leaching reagents.

Those two steps are expected to decrease cash costs by about A$80/oz.

“If you add that on top of the idea of the pushback of the Cleo pit, you're talking of a step change in performance,” Calderon said.

AngloGold’s full asset potential programme is now focused on Siguiri and in three months quantitative numbers can be expected on the on the Guinean gold mining operation.

“It's all about taking these operations to their full potential and it's a well proven methodology that has worked very well in other companies,” said Calderon in response to Mining Weekly.

COLOMBIAN ASSETS

Based on preliminary results of the optimised feasibility study for the Gramalote gold project in Colombia, a joint operation between B2Gold and AngloGold Ashanti, the partners have determined that the project does not currently meet their investment thresholds

for development at this time.

On the other hand, in the case of the Quebradona project in Colombia, the company will be seeking a new environmental licence request for Quebradona.

This follows the decision of Colombia’s environmental agency has re-affirmed its decision to archive the AngloGold’s environmental licence application relating to the Quebradona project, a gold/copper project.

Calderon explained that Quebradona has the gold equivalent ounces to be a long-life large 600 000 oz asset with Gramalote smaller 100 000 oz shorter life asset.

He expressed disappointing that more resource had not been found at Gramalote, which was more suited to a gold-mining company smaller than AngloGold.

“We prefer to focus our scarce capital in the bigger assets,” said Calderon, adding that disposal of Gramalote was now one of AngloGold’s options.

NEW BRAZILIAN TAILINGS REGULATIONS

AngloGold’s tailings storage facilities in Brazil, where a major tailings tragedy occurred a few years ago, are in the process of being converted to dry-stacking operations to comply with new...

Diversified miner and marketer Glencore is taking steps to progress its decarbonisation pathway, CEO Gary Nagle said on Thursday, when the London- and Johannesburg-listed company delivered exceptionally strong financial results in the six months to June 30.

The steps include locking in a number of renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) to reduce the Scope 1 and 2 emissions in its business and managing down its Scope 3 emissions largely through the rundown of its coal business. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Glencore is prioritising capital expenditure towards future-facing metals and not its fossil fuels business. It has a certificated renewable PPA for Antapaccay copper mine in Peru's Cuzco region, extended renewable hydropower arrangements in Kazakhstan, and is progressing renewable energy plans at its ferroalloys business in South Africa.

“At the same time, we don't only look inside the fence but we look outside and our supply chains are critical in ensuring that our suppliers and the commodities and inputs that we buy into our business likewise have the carbon footprints not only monitored but reduced as we go forward to ensure that our footprint within the world is reduced,” Nagle told the results presentation covered by Mining Weekly.

“We support all sorts of technologies within the decarbonisation drive. We are putting our own money towards carbon abatement,” said Nagle, who reiterated that there would be no deviation from the path of responsibly running down coal.

On the recycling front, Glencore is partnering circularity within battery raw material supply chains.

The group’s record half-year result had adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) of just short of $19-billion.

A top shareholder return of $4.5-billion was made with $3-billion in share buybacks and $1.45-billion in cash returns, lifting total 2022 shareholder returns to $8.5-billion.

Nagle emphasised that global macroeconomic and geopolitical events during the half created extraordinary energy market dislocation, volatility, risk, and supply disruption, underpinning the $10.3-billion, 119% increase in group adjusted Ebitda. Marketing adjusted Ebit more than doubled to $3.7-billion, with energy products the standout, while Industrial adjusted Ebitda increased $8.4-billion to $15-billion period-on-period.

Commenting on the half-year results, Barclays analysts stated in a note: “Glencore remains our top pick given its catalyst rich investment case, strong free cash flow and return potential which should ramp up meaningfully over the next 12 months.”

Deutsche Bank reiterated its buy rating, and Jefferies pointed out that the record half-year Ebitda of $18.9-billion compares with Glencore's full-year Ebitda of $21.3-billion of 2021, which was itself a record year.

Credit Suisse research bulletin analysts hihglighted Glencore's marketing Ebitda as being 10% above consensus, while JP Morgan Cazenove spoke of Glencore’s first-half performance being “exceptionally strong”.

Looking ahead, tightening financial conditions and a deteriorating macroeconomic environment are presenting some second-half uncertainty for commodity markets.

On having commodities needed for today and the future, Nagle said: “We have a coal business which provides the transition fuel as we decarbonise in this world, to allow countries and the world to decarbonise and still maintain reliable baseload energy.

“We also have a terrific set of future-facing metals operations around the world, very large copper, very large cobalt, very large zinc, very large nickel and nickel production, providing the solutions that the world needs.”

Moreover, the marketing business is being presented with arbitrage opportunities from the dislocations in the market.

Despite the higher working capital build, cash generated reduced net funding to $28-billion and net debt to $2.3-billion from prior period levels of $30.8-billion and $6-billion respectively.