Glencore fails to repeat oil trading success

A less volatile 2021 offers fewer opportunities for profit

Commodity trader Glencore recorded an adjusted Ebit of $672mn in the first half of 2021, down by 47pc compared with $1.265bn the same period last year as the firm’s traders found the oil market less conducive to delivering the record returns available in H1 2020. An improved contribution from the firm’s coal trading was not enough to offset “a return by oil back to within its more normal range, albeit towards the top end”. “Exceptional price movements and dislocations enabled our oil department to deliver a record half-yearly performance in H1 2020,” the firm says. But “due to a steadily increasing oil price trend this year, volatility was rather muted, with Brent near-dated implied volatili