Glencore restructures coal assets under single Australian unit

LONDON, May 29 (Reuters) - Glencore said on Thursday it had restructured its coal business by moving its recently acquired Canadian mines into a single unit run out of Australia, making it easy to manage.

The Swiss-based miner and trader bought Canadian miner Teck Resources' steelmaking coal assets for $6.9 billion and initially outlined a plan to spin off all its coal assets, which was later abandoned.

"Combined with the acquisition of EVR we commenced a process to restructure the coal business and align it with the management structure given the coal industrial assets are managed out of Australia," a Glencore spokesperson said.

Glencore also owns coal mines in South Africa and is one of the largest producers and exporters of thermal coal, mining 99.6 million metric tons in 2024, down from 106.1 million in 2023.

Glencore last year walked back on plans to spin off coal assets after securing backing from a majority of its investors who still anticipate lucrative earnings from the fossil fuel.

Glencore said because this process was already underway when it completed the acquisition of Teck's assets, a decision was made to continue with the restructuring and have the coal business under a single unit in Australia.

"We chose to complete the restructure despite the shareholder engagement resulting in a decision not to proceed with the spin-off," the spokesperson said. (Reporting by Clara Denina in London, Writing by Felix Njini in Johannesburg; Editing by Susan Fenton and Mark Potter)

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