Up to 700 Glencore jobs are on the line

GLENCORE was preparing to dismiss as many as 700 workers as lower prices had made the shutdown of some operations at its Optimum Coal Mines unit in Mpumalanga unavoidable, it announced yesterday. “These operations are financially not viable in the current market conditions,” Glencore said. “There are no measures available to avoid the retrenchments” of 600 to 700 employees, it said. Optimum has been in talks with unions over possible closures since January as coal prices have plunged 29 percent since the start of last year. About half of Optimum’s 10 million tons of annual output is exported and the rest goes to Eskom, which it will continue to supply. Glencore said it might reopen the operations if commodity prices improved. – Bloomberg