Energy transition needs investment of a further $304-trillion, Glencore calculates

This audio is brought to you by Astec Industries, a Global Leader in manufacturing equipment for infrastructure, including asphalt production, construction, and material processing, driving innovation and sustainability.

The global energy transition needs investment of a further $304-trillion, Glencore CEO Gary Nagle pointed out during the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed diversified mining and marketing company's Capital Markets Day 2025.

The global energy transition investment of $9.6-trillion made has so far has reduced fossil fuel's share of global demand by 7%, Nagle reported. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The Glencore commodities to support the pathway requiring that further $304-trillion investment were displayed on a slide that listed copper, cobalt, nickel, aluminium, zinc, vanadium and steelmaking coal - metals used in items including batteries, solar power, wind power, electric vehicle mobility, electronics, grid, artificial intelligence infrastructure and packaging.

The big focus of the day was on copper, where Glencore emphasised the global need for significant supply growth and investment.

"Now today, in copper, we're producing about 850 000 t of copper this year, rebasing back up to a million tons of base copper production, as we were few years ago. And then the growth beyond that is really is going to be big," Nagle pointed out during the event covered by Mining Weekly.

Highlighted was a portfolio of ten copper growth options capable of increasing Glencore copper production to a level of 1.4-million tonnes of copper a year from mines including Mutanda Mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Coroccohuayco and Antapaccay in Peru, and Collahuasi in Chile, to name a few.

Its base copper portfolio is sufficient to return Glencore to one-million tons a year by 2028 and a growth pipeline targeting 1.6-million tonnes a year by 2035.

Nine of the ten growth options in the pipeline are brownfield, capital efficient opportunities.

A slide displayed showed Glencore as a big-five copper producer by 2029 and potentially the world's biggest by 2035 with a projected first-quartile total cash cost position.

Then, moving to fossil fuel, Nagle described the coal as continuing to be "a key part of our business".

On why retains coal and why Glencore needs coal, Nagle explained that it's not only because shareholders said the company should retain coal. "We believe we should keep coal. It makes a lot of sense to keep coal.

"Look, if shareholders change their minds and don't want to keep coal, we can always relook at it. But as we sit today, we believe there's a strong case for particularly high-quality energy coal for many decades to come," Nagle said while pointing out that coal is a major generator to cashflow even in low coal price environments.

Overall, Glencore has delivered more than $25-billion to shareholders over the last five years to shareholders and believes with the market and the business set up like it is, it will be able to continue to provide good returns.

While Glencore is feeding the global energy transition with the copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, and lithium, which it mines and trade, this is taking place amid fossil fuels losing 7% of the market share over 20 years, since 2004.

"That's true, but the world has spent nearly $10-trillion on the energy transition, and the use of fossil fuels have gone down from 85% to 79%. That's all that $10-trillion has managed to achieve, and when you look at it in absolute terms, the pie has grown.

"In fact, the use of absolute units of fossil fuels has gone up from 2004 to 2024 and thinking forward, you want to go build a nuclear power station today, we know Hinkley Point, here in the UK, is 20 years away, at least.

"If you want to build a gas-fired power station, you've got a five-year waiting time for a gas turbine.

"So, the need for fossil fuels, in particular high-quality steam coal in today's world is absolutely required, and that's where our strong con...