Glencore Plc's production last year suffered the impact of asset sales, maintenance breaks and bad weather. The annual update published on Thursday revealed the slowdown in Alumbrera in Argentina, due to end-of-life effects, and bottlenecks on the suppliers' side helped drive own-sourced copper volumes down 8% to 1.31 million tons. However, the mining company highlighted the jump of 20% in the fourth quarter from the previous three months, to 363,200 tons.
Volumes of zinc under the same methodology came in at an almost unchanged 1.01 million, and the output of nickel dropped 5% to 109,100 tons. An advance in gold of 1% landed the result at 1.03 million ounces. The Anglo-Swiss resource giant manufactured more than 37.7 million ounces of silver, a drop of 3%. It reported 116 tons of platinum and 161 tons of palladium, 22% and 23% less, respectively, than in 2016.
The overall quantity came in roughly in line with the latest guidance. Glencore also disclosed notable growth in proved and probable reserves of nickel, zinc and copper ore. The production of copper is projected to grow 11.8% and the result in cobalt is seen improving by 42.3%, after slipping 3% to 27,400 tons.
