Glencore plc

Afro-Colombian and Wayuu Indigenous communities forced Glencore to suspend operations at its El Cerrejón mine, in research by Mohammed Usrof for the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy, which traces the supply chain from extraction in La Guajira to Israeli energy infrastructure.

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. The communities' 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.

All seventeen resolutions at 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, and chief executive Gary Nagle was re-elected. The largest opposition on any resolution was 7.78%, on a routine authority renewal. No resolution on the Israeli coal sales was tabled.

Protests met Glencore in six countries on three continents on 28 May 2026, the day of its annual general meeting: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, South Africa, Colombia, Argentina and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Organisers included 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.

Seventeen monitored vessels loaded at Richards Bay between October 2023 and December 2025 and carried at least 2.99 million tonnes of coal to Hadera and Ashkelon, on South African Revenue Service data cited in the SA BDS Coalition submission. The trade department's spokesperson Kaamil Alli said the government's position 'is reflected in our case at the ICJ' and called the issues complex, noting that the Department of International Relations and Cooperation and Cabinet would be consulted before a ministerial position is taken.

Glencore is the largest exporter of coal to Israel, according to a 264-page legal submission the SA BDS Coalition handed to South Africa's Department of Trade, Industry and Competition on 23 March 2026, reported by Mondoweiss. Drawing on South African Revenue Service and shipping data, the human rights lawyer Sirhaan Che Khan records at least 2.99 million tonnes shipped to Israel since October 2023, loaded at the Richards Bay Coal Terminal and discharged at Hadera and Ashkelon, records that some vessels concealed their destinations, and argues South Africa is legally and constitutionally obliged to halt the trade.

Glencore reported revenue of USD 247.5 billion for 2025, 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; and USD 3.5 billion of distributions and buybacks, up 83%. Energy coal recorded a 19% adjusted EBITDA mining margin and steelmaking coal 36%.

Coal generated 33.5% of Israel Electric Corporation's electricity in the first nine months of 2024 and 26.2% in 2025, on the utility's own financial reports, in research by the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy. It documents at least eight covert shipments of South African coal, roughly 751 kilotonnes, delivered on Greek-managed vessels using false declared destinations and automatic identification system shutdowns, and records Colombia exporting 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.

South Africa displaced Colombia as Israel's largest coal supplier after Colombia's export ban, on data from the analytics firm Kpler cited by News24. Israeli imports from South Africa rose by about a million tonnes to 1.78 million tonnes, and 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.

Glencore is the largest exporter of coal to Israel, loading at the Richards Bay Coal Terminal in KwaZulu-Natal and selling South African coal through the joint ventures it holds with African Rainbow Minerals, on this campaign factsheet. The buyer, Israel Electric Corporation, is described as the sole integrated electricity provider across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel 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 failing to prevent genocide, for committing it, and for failing to punish it. The analysis covers Gaza from 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025.

South Africans marched 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, carrying placards reading 'No South African coal for Israel'. Mametlwe Sebei, president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa, said the union had protested and registered its views, but 'what the government does is what it chooses'.

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.

President Gustavo Petro said Colombia would alter Glencore's concession contract if it did not suspend coal shipments to Israel, and then 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.

Glencore 'categorically reject[s] all the allegations appearing in this report' and considers them unsubstantiated and devoid of any legal basis, answering on 1 July 2025 for being named by the UN Special Rapporteur. The Swiss public broadcaster sets out what it 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.

Glencore and the United States firm Drummond are the primary suppliers of the coal that generates Israel's electricity, most of it from Colombia (60% of Israeli coal imports in 2023-24), in the report of Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. It records their subsidiaries owning the mines and the three ports behind fifteen shipments to Israel since October 2023, six of them after Colombia suspended exports in August 2024, and Glencore's involvement in South African shipments making up 15% of Israeli coal imports in 2023-24. The report calls its company list illustrative, not definitive.

Corporate entities have 'profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide', the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory finds, and those directly linked to human rights impacts must exercise leverage or consider terminating their activities or relationships.

Campaigners held coordinated protests in South Africa, Colombia, Peru, Germany and Switzerland, timed to Glencore's annual general meeting and organised by the Resist Glencore Network and the Global Energy Embargo campaign.

The bulk carrier KSL Salvador left Richards Bay on 4 December 2023 and arrived at Hadera, the port serving the Orot Rabin power station, on 19 January 2024; the Cape Friendship arrived in Israel on 9 March 2025. South African coal exports to Israel rose 17% comparing January 2025 with January 2024, and their value rose 22.9% year on year to about USD 28 million. African Rainbow Minerals holds 51% of the Goedgevonden joint venture with Glencore. South African officials acknowledged an 'uncomfortable optics problem' while citing legal constraints on unilateral trade restrictions.

African Rainbow Minerals, 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 ARM 'is not involved in the marketing or sales of the coal' and that Glencore handles both. ARM said it respects the democratic right of the protesters at its offices and reaffirmed its human rights commitments. Two bulk carriers left Richards Bay for Israel on 28 February and 11 March 2025, and South African coal briquette exports to Israel were worth USD 79 million in 2023.

The Global Energy Embargo for Palestine urged the terminal's chief executive to take immediate and concrete steps to halt coal shipments to Israel, recording two vessels, the Algoma Value and the Schinousa, leaving Richards Bay in March 2025 with South African coal for Israel and estimated to arrive on 3 and 9 April. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited the terminal to respond and records that it did not.

Glencore kept its coal business after consulting shareholders representing an estimated two-thirds of eligible voting shares, over 95% of those expressing a preference backing retention, principally because it would enhance the group's cash-generating capacity. The board called retention 'the optimal pathway for demonstrable and realisable value creation'. It said it would continue the responsible decline of thermal coal under its 2024-2026 Climate Action Transition Plan, which more than 90% of voting shareholders had approved. The consultation followed its acquisition of a 77% interest in Elk Valley Resources, and concerned no particular customer.

Almost 200 representatives of mining unions and civic organisations protested at Glencore's Johannesburg offices, calling for a halt to coal exports to Israel. A senior legal adviser accepted their memorandum and declined to comment.

The International Court of Justice held that Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful, and that settlements and their associated economic activity are contrary to international law. It set out obligations on states in relation to trade and dealings that entrench that presence.

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 made the first call for suspension in November 2023, working with the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine, a coalition of Palestinian groups, climate activists and Indigenous organisations that organised actions targeting Glencore's Cerrejón mines, which displaced Wayuu and Yukpa Indigenous communities. Middle East Eye reported that Glencore supplied 90% of Colombia's coal exports to Israel.

Protesters targeted Glencore's annual general meeting in Switzerland in May 2024 over its coal exports to Israel. Asked whether Glencore conducts human rights assessments on the coal it sells to Israel, chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi answered that the company supplies coal to many countries and that the question could not be answered.

The 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. The Court made no finding on the merits of the genocide claim, which remains pending.

Glencore's coal supplies power Israeli military infrastructure and illegal settlements, the Climate Justice Coalition argues in a campaign report calling for action ahead of Glencore's annual general meeting.

Norway's Government Pension Fund Global excluded Glencore plc after assessing it 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. This was the first application of those absolute thresholds. The exclusion rests on coal, so an exclusion argued on conduct in relation to the occupation would be a distinct decision.