Glencore earned less money from energy sales despite selling more oil for the third consecutive year

The annual earnings of the commodity trader, mining group Glencore showed that it traded more oil in 2013 but made less money?from energy trading? for the third consecutive year.

The company stated that "Energy coal and steelmaking coking coal faced a more subdued climate." The company said that "well-supplied markets and geopolitical uncertainties, as well as softer sentiments" affected performance.

Glencore announced slightly lower core earnings for 2025 on Wednesday and announced it would return $ 2 billion to its shareholders. In early April, negotiations to merge Rio Tinto and create a global mining company failed.

Marketing Volumes Rise

Calculations based on results show that Glencore traded 4.2 million barrels of crude oil and oil products per day last year. This was up 11% from the previous year and is the highest level since 2020. It was still a long way from the 5.6 million barrels per day it traded in 2017.

After a decline in volumes between?2020-2022, due to disruptions of Glencore's Russian business following Russia's invasion into Ukraine and demand destruction caused COVID-19, volumes have begun to recover.

The U.S. Department of Justice ended its monitoring of Glencore's trades in March 2025 - a year sooner than originally planned. Monitorships were initiated after Glencore agreed in 2022 to pay fines as part of DOJ investigations into bribery, market manipulation and extortion.

According to Glencore’s report for 2024, the monitorship incurred costs of $85 million in that year alone.

Glencore's earnings from energy and steelmaking coking coal trading have fallen for the?third straight year, falling 32% from last year to $614m in 2025. This is a huge drop from its record high of $5.2b in 2022.

Glencore?saw a significant rebound in the second halves of last year after its first-half EBIT for energy marketing was only $40 million. The company stated that the well-supplied markets for energy in the first half 2025 led to significant price reductions.

Alex Sanna, Glencore's former head of oil and gas, was appointed to this role at the beginning of the year. Reporting by Robert Harvey in London and Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by Barbara Lewis and Alexandra Hudson

(source: Reuters)