Glencore is guiding towards a bumper year in commodity trading, with profit from that business expected to top $5bn. Coal and copper prices are on the rise, and the war-driven chaos in energy markets is working in the raw-materials giant’s favour.
A result above that $5bn mark would be the group’s best showing since 2022, the year Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rattled energy markets from top to bottom. Glencore is also one of the biggest copper producers on the planet, so every swing in metal prices feeds quickly into its bottom line.
In 2026 investors are once again reaping enormous profits. The US war with Iran is fuelling steep fluctuations in energy prices and deep dislocations between regional markets. Commodity traders thrive when prices move sharply and when the same material fetches very different amounts in different parts of the world.
Freight costs rise as Hormuz flows are disrupted
Transport has become more expensive as well. Disruptions to flows through the Strait of Hormuz have pushed shipping costs sharply higher, narrowing the room for error on long-haul cargoes. Rising coal and copper prices add another layer of support, widening the margins Glencore can capture on physical cargoes and on related trades.
Targets beaten year after year
Bloomberg notes that the company has repeatedly overshot its long-term profit objectives in recent years. The forces behind those results, the agency says, have been movements in commodity prices, inflation, the set of trading opportunities on offer, and the sheer scale and volume of Glencore’s business.
That record has been built in very different conditions, from the energy shock that followed the invasion of Ukraine to the conflict-driven swings of 2026.
For Glencore, the present market carries echoes of 2022, when the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine upended supply routes and price relationships across fuels and metals. Four years on, the trigger looks different, yet the effect on how raw materials are priced and moved from one region to another is comparable.
Źródło: WNP.pl, Fot. Jose Luis Stephens / Shutterstock
