When asked about the weakness in the company’s share price last week at Glencore’s annual general meeting, Glasenberg said it was due to external factors.
“Unfortunately, our competitors, the world, have produced more supply than demand and commodity prices are down for that reason,” he said.
“Hopefully it will rectify itself when the mining industry stops building new mines and stops building new supply and oversupplying the market, and I’m doing my level best to convince my competitors we should understand the word ‘demand-supply’.”
Glasenberg previously said that Glencore would not feed supply into an oversupplied market and the company cut Australian coal supply over Christmas to try to ease the pressure on the price.
Glencore is also opposed to new greenfield developments.
“Hopefully no more greenfield mines are being built, less mines are being built to supply the market and we don’t oversupply a market that doesn’t need it,” Glasenberg said.
On commodities, Glasenberg said he expected copper to move into a deficit due to declining grades in South America, while zinc and nickel were also expected to be in deficit by the end of the year.
He described coal as “interesting” as it was in the rebalancing stage.
“Coal looks good going forward,” Glasenberg said.
According to Glasenberg, Glencore was looking for opportunities, but anything that arose would have to meet a strict criteria.
