Glencore plc

Research by Mohammed Usrof of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy, published 3 June 2026, on the blockade by Afro-Colombian and Wayuu Indigenous communities that forced the suspension of operations at Glencore's El Cerrejón mine, and tracing the supply chain from extraction in La Guajira to Israeli energy infrastructure. Listed on the Institute's research index at the date of this refresh.

Glencore declared force majeure at its wholly owned Cerrejón mine in La Guajira, Colombia, on 1 June 2026 after Afro-Colombian and Wayuu Indigenous communities blockaded the coal railway from 23 May, halting mining, rail and port activity; the declaration was lifted the following evening. Community demands concerned constitutional rulings on collective rights and prior consultation, water access, renewable energy projects and royalty redistribution. The mine recorded around eighty blockades in the first half of 2026 and 333 in 2024. Included because it establishes the operational fragility of the origin the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy traced to Israeli power stations, not because the blockade was about Palestine.

Establishes that the campaign has not yet touched the governance position. All seventeen resolutions put to the meeting held in Baar on 28 May 2026 were carried, with support ranging from 92.22% to 99.92%. Chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi was re-elected with 4.73% against, chief executive Gary Nagle was re-elected, and the largest opposition on any resolution was 7.78%, on a routine authority renewal. No resolution on the Israeli coal sales was tabled.

Records coordinated actions on 28 May 2026 in six countries across three continents - the United Kingdom, Switzerland, South Africa, Colombia, Argentina and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - organised with Climatestrike Bern, the Swiss Coalition against Glencore, Voices, the El Algarrobo Assembly in Argentina, the Peruvian Association of People Affected by Heavy Metals and Resist Glencore in the DRC. South African participants called for an embargo to end Glencore's coal exports to Israel, citing the UN report. Establishes that an organised international channel into Glencore's annual meeting exists.

Independent South African reporting on the SA BDS Coalition submission. Records at least 2.99 million tonnes shipped to Israel on seventeen monitored vessels loading at Richards Bay between October 2023 and December 2025, on South African Revenue Service data cited in the report, discharging at Hadera and Ashkelon. The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition spokesperson Kaamil Alli said the government's position 'is reflected in our case at the ICJ' and described the issues as complex, noting that the Department of International Relations and Cooperation and Cabinet would be consulted before a ministerial position is taken. Establishes that no South African export restriction is in force.

The most detailed tracking of the South African route. A 264-page legal document by the human rights lawyer Sirhaan Che Khan, handed to representatives of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition in Pretoria on 23 March 2026, arguing that South Africa is obliged under international law and its own constitution to halt coal exports to Israel. Drawing on South African Revenue Service and shipping data, it records at least 2.99 million tonnes of coal shipped to Israel from October 2023, loaded at the Richards Bay Coal Terminal and discharged at Hadera and Ashkelon, which serve the state-owned Israel Electric Corporation's Orot Rabin and Rutenberg power stations. It names Glencore as the largest exporter of coal to Israel, operating through partnerships with local mining companies including African Rainbow Minerals, and reports that some vessels concealed their destinations. Summarised here from Mondoweiss's report of May 2026; the coalition's own October 2025 factsheet is cited separately below.

The financial baseline. Revenue of USD 247.5 billion, up 7% on 2024; adjusted EBITDA of USD 13.5 billion, down 6%; net income of USD 363 million against a loss of USD 1,634 million in 2024; USD 3.5 billion of distributions and buybacks, up 83%. Energy coal recorded a 19% adjusted EBITDA mining margin and steelmaking coal 36%. Establishes that neither the UN naming nor three years of protest has produced measurable financial pressure.

Palestinian-authored research tracing the supply chain in three phases after October 2023. Citing the Israel Electric Corporation's own financial reports, it records coal at 33.5% of the utility's electricity generation in the first nine months of 2024 and 26.2% in 2025 - the figures this profile uses in place of the older campaign estimate of 17.5%. It documents at least eight covert shipments of South African coal totalling roughly 751 kilotonnes delivered to Israel on Greek-managed vessels using false declared destinations and automatic identification system shutdowns, and records that Colombia exported around three million tonnes to Israel in 2023, about 5.4% of its total coal exports. The Institute campaigns for a global energy embargo on Israel.

Establishes the reroute in mainstream South African business press. Reports that South Africa displaced Colombia as Israel's largest coal supplier after Colombia's export ban, that Israeli imports from South Africa rose by about a million tonnes to 1.78 million tonnes, and that exports rose 87% year on year to 474,000 tonnes in the three months to November 2025 with nearly 170,000 tonnes expected in December, on data from the analytics firm Kpler. Retained on the strength of the reporting; the page blocks automated retrieval and was read via search summary rather than fetched directly in this refresh.

Campaign factsheet setting out the South African leg of the trade: Glencore as the largest exporter of coal to Israel; the Richards Bay Coal Terminal in KwaZulu-Natal as the loading point; the joint ventures with African Rainbow Minerals through which Glencore sells South African coal; and the Israel Electric Corporation described as the sole integrated electricity provider across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. A campaign source, cited for the route and the counterparties it identifies.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the OPT concludes on reasonable grounds that Israeli authorities and security forces 'have committed and are continuing to commit' acts of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, that they have and continue to have genocidal intent, and that Israel bears State responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish it. The analysis covers Gaza over 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025.

Marches to Department of Trade, Industry and Competition offices in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town on 21 August 2025 demanding a government embargo on coal shipments to Israel, with placards reading 'No South African coal for Israel'. Mametlwe Sebei, president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa, is quoted: 'Well, we have protested. We have registered our views, but what the government does is what it chooses.' No government or Glencore response is recorded.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions, the country's largest trade union federation, publicly backed the call for Glencore to halt coal shipments to Israel and endorsed the campaign for an energy embargo. Significant because it places organised labour at the loading end of the supply chain rather than only in solidarity politics.

President Gustavo Petro said Colombia would change Glencore's concession contract if it did not suspend coal shipments to Israel, and subsequently ordered the Colombian navy to intercept outbound cargoes destined for Israel. Glencore's position was that it was already in compliance, its last shipment having left about two weeks before the decree took effect. The decisive precedent on this page: a producing state used its own contractual and enforcement powers against the exporter, and the Colombian flow stopped.

The company's own words, and its position at the date of this refresh. Responding to being named in the UN Special Rapporteur's report, Glencore said: 'We categorically reject all the allegations appearing in this report and consider them unsubstantiated and devoid of any legal basis.' The Swiss public broadcaster's report sets out the allegation the company was answering - that Glencore and Drummond operate the Colombian subsidiaries that shipped fifteen coal consignments to Israel since October 2023, and that Glencore also sourced coal from South African mines for export to Israel. The statement announces no change to the sales.

The central document for this profile. Paragraph 57 records that 'Coal for electricity to Israel originates primarily from Colombia (60 per cent of Israeli coal imports in 2023-24); United States-headquartered Drummond Company, Inc. and the Swiss-based Glencore PLC are the primary suppliers.' It states that their respective subsidiaries own the mines and the three ports involved in the delivery of fifteen coal shipments to Israel since October 2023, including six shipments after Colombia suspended coal exports to Israel in August 2024, and that Glencore was also involved in shipments from South Africa which accounted for 15 per cent of Israeli coal imports in 2023 and 2024. The report is by Francesca Albanese, the independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to report on the occupied Palestinian territory; it frames its own list of companies as illustrative rather than definitive.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, finding that 'corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide' and that 'corporate entities directly linked to human rights impacts must exercise leverage or consider termination of their activities or relationships'. Directly applicable to commodity traders supplying inputs to the Israeli grid.

Coordinated protests in South Africa, Colombia, Peru, Germany, and Switzerland organised by Resist Glencore Network and Global Energy Embargo Campaign.

Reporting on the South African trade with named vessels and destinations: the KSL Salvador departed Richards Bay on 4 December 2023 and arrived at Hadera on 19 January 2024; the Cape Friendship arrived in Israel on 9 March 2025. Records the Orot Rabin plant at Hadera as a destination, coal exports to Israel up 17% comparing January 2025 with January 2024, and export value up 22.9% year on year to about USD 28 million. Notes African Rainbow Minerals' 51% holding in the Goedgevonden joint venture with Glencore. South African officials are described as acknowledging an 'uncomfortable optics problem' while citing legal constraints on unilateral trade restrictions.

The clearest corroboration from a company balance sheet that Glencore, not its South African partner, controls the sales. ARM, the Johannesburg-listed group chaired by Patrice Motsepe, holds a 23% minority interest in Glencore's coal operations in South Africa and told GroundUp that Glencore manages the marketing and sales and that ARM 'is not involved in the marketing or sales of the coal'. ARM said it respects the democratic right of the protesters demonstrating at its offices and reaffirmed its human rights commitments. The report records two bulk carriers departing Richards Bay on 28 February and 11 March 2025 bound for Israel, and South African coal briquette exports to Israel of USD 79 million in 2023.

Open letter to the terminal's chief executive urging immediate and concrete steps to halt coal shipments to Israel, recording two vessels - the Algoma Value and the Schinousa - departing Richards Bay in March 2025 with South African coal for Israel, with estimated arrivals on 3 and 9 April. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre sought a response from the terminal and records its non-response. Establishes that the port operator has been put on notice.

Primary source for why shareholder pressure on the coal business has already been tested and lost. Following the acquisition of a 77% interest in Elk Valley Resources, Glencore consulted shareholders representing an estimated two-thirds of eligible voting shares on whether to retain or demerge coal. Over 95% of those who expressed a preference supported retention, principally on the ground that it would enhance the group's cash-generating capacity. The board concluded that retention 'currently provides the optimal pathway for demonstrable and realisable value creation'. The company said it would continue to oversee the responsible decline of thermal coal under its 2024-2026 Climate Action Transition Plan, which more than 90% of voting shareholders had approved. Nothing in the consultation concerned particular customers.

Almost 200 representatives of mining unions and civic organisations protest at Glencore Johannesburg offices calling for halt to Israel coal exports.

The International Court of Justice found Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful, held settlements and their associated economic activity contrary to international law, and set out obligations on states in relation to trade and dealings that entrench that presence. The framework on which state export decisions and institutional exclusion decisions rest.

Names the Palestinian actors behind the largest single reduction in Glencore's Israeli coal flow. The Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy wrote to President Gustavo Petro in June 2024 arguing that the genocide 'would not have been possible if the colonising state of Israel had stopped receiving energy sources'. The Colombian coal miners' union Sintracarbón had issued the first call for suspension in November 2023, coordinating with the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine coalition of Palestinian groups, climate activists and Indigenous organisations. The report records that Glencore supplied 90% of Colombia's coal exports to Israel and that the coalition organised actions targeting Glencore's Cerrejón mines, which displaced Wayuu and Yukpa Indigenous communities.

Global protests at Glencore AGM in Switzerland. Chairman refuses to answer shareholder questions on human rights assessments for Israel coal exports.

International Court of Justice found a real and imminent risk to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide, and ordered Israel to prevent them. No finding was made on the merits of the genocide claim, but the order establishes a duty of prevention that energy suppliers cannot claim ignorance of.

Campaign report documenting Glencore's coal supplies powering Israeli military infrastructure and illegal settlements.

Norway's Government Pension Fund Global excluded Glencore plc following assessment against the product-based coal criterion, which applies to companies deriving 30% or more of income or operations from thermal coal or extracting more than 20 million tonnes a year. The first application of those absolute thresholds. The clearest published template for an institutional exclusion of this company - and a reminder that the exclusions on record rest on the coal criterion, so an exclusion argued on conduct in relation to the occupation would be a distinct decision.