The Anglo-Swiss mining giant Glencore plc. describes itself as one of the largest global diversified natural resource companies in the world, involved at every stage of the supply chain of its products, from extraction and processing through to marketing and trading. It has operations extracting and producing more than 60 commodities in over 30 countries that it manages through a network of subsidiaries. These sprawling operations include metals – particularly copper, nickel, zinc and cobalt – as well as coal, oil and gas.
Glencore is one of the world’s largest mining companies, with the biggest revenue globally in 2025 of $232.84 billion. As a multinational, the headquarters of its commodity and mining offices are in Baar, Switzerland, while its oil and gas headquarters are in London, and its primary listing is on the London Stock Exchange.
Source: Glencore
Glencore has always taken pains to shroud its operations in secrecy, and for good reason: the details that have been painstakingly brought to light by community activists and environmental justice campaigners paint a damning picture. From the bribery scandals in the DRC, the murder of anti-mining activists in the Philippines, the poisoning of water supplies in Peru, and the abuse of workers in its mines the world over, we can see that whilst Glencore’s operations might be diverse, the common thread that ties them together is an exploitative business model based on crossing ethical lines in the pursuit of ever greater profits. Below is a brief overview of Glencore’s history and some of the communities affected by its operations that LMN works in solidarity with.
Glencore – a brief history
Glencore began in 1974, when founder Marc Rich resigned from his position at the commodity traders Philipp Brothers to form Marc Rich and Co. The firm evaded international sanctions to make lucrative trades with pariah states, particularly apartheid-era South Africa, with whom Rich made his “most important and most profitable” deals ever. This came at a cost. In 1983 Rich was charged with criminal fraud, wire fraud, racketeering, and tax evasion, and fled the US for Switzerland.
Initially, the company was purely a commodities trader, particularly crude oil, metals, and agricultural products. In 1987, however, Marc Rich and Co. started to acquire firms that were involved in extraction and production, beginning with a US aluminium smelter and then a Peruvian lead and zinc mine. These acquisitions continued apace as Marc Rich and Co. expanded. Of particular note is the purchase of Mopani, a Zambian copper mine, in 2000, and purchase of a stake in Prodeco, a Colombian coal mine, in 1995.
The 1990s and 2000s were a time of internal turmoil at the company. Marc Rich was forced out by the management board in 1993, and the firm promptly changed its name to ‘Glencore’ to bury any lingering association with its controversial founder. It underwent a public listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2011, marking a dramatic departure in strategy, but continued to expand aggressively. In 2013, merger talks with longtime business partner and subsidiary Xstrata went sour after more than a year of negotiations, and morphed into a hostile takeover. Glencore traded under the new name of Glencore Xstrata for a while, and continued to consolidate its position as a top mining giant. The company reached the position it is in today off the back of violent suppression of anti-mining organising, polluting of vital water supplies, and participation in state-level bribery and corruption. Communities around the world are struggling against Glencore and its deadly operations. Here are some of their stories.
Violent displacement of communities in Colombia
On 9 August 2001, the residents of the village of Tabaco in La Guajira, Colombia, were violently evicted from their land and their village was destroyed to make way for the expansion of the Cerrejón open-cast coal mine. Formerly a joint operation with BHP and Anglo American, Cerrejón has been wholly owned by Glencore since 2022.
In 2026, displaced communities once again blockaded the railway to Cerrejón, demanding the rebuilding of their town, having regularly resorted to this protest tactic due to Glencore’s ongoing failure to fulfil its relocation promises. Glencore says it will responsibly wind down operations at Cerrejón ready for the end of the mining licence in 2034, but communities and mine workers have raised concerns that their advocacy for a fair closure plan will not be respected.
Enabling genocide and profiting from war
In 2025, a UN report, by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, unveiled the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. In the context of energy production, the report highlighted Glencore among the companies complicit, due to its coal exports from Colombia and South Africa. Activists in Colombia fought hard to achieve an embargo on their country’s coal exports to Israel, with a fierce campaign in South Africa working to establish an embargo there. These efforts face threats from the election of a far-right pro-Israel president in Colombia’s 2026 election.
Glencore has also made immense profits from the US war on Iran. The company’s earnings from trading commodities doubled in the first half of 2026 as war in the Middle East supercharged its oil profits.
Disrupting and poisoning vital water supplies
Glencore’s mines have had devastating impacts on their surrounding environments, with deadly consequences for those who live nearby. Entire rivers have been diverted to fuel Glencore operations, even in areas where water is scarce, and the remaining water supply is often so contaminated with lead and other heavy metals that it is unfit to support life.
Glencore holds the dubious honour of being the first mining company to be charged with environmental contamination by a Latin American court. Xstrata vice-president Julian Rooney was charged in 2008 for environmental crimes relating to water contamination at the Alumbrera mine, Argentina. The company has more recently lobbied for access to mine Argentina’s glaciers, resulting in weakened government protections. In 2023, Glencore acquired the Agua Rica mining project in Andalgalá, Argentina. Local communities are resolutely resisting the development of the mine in order to protect the glacial and periglacial environment of the Aconquija mountains – a vital and irreplaceable water source.
In Puerto Huarmey, in the region of Ancash, Peru, a public health crisis has been declared due to pollution from heavy metals linked to Glencore’s Antamina copper and zinc mine. As well as impacting community health, the contamination of waterways has destroyed local fishing livelihoods. In the DRC, communities have been subjected to air, water and land pollution, which has contaminated agricultural land and caused respiratory diseases. Traditional Quilombola and Ribeirinho communities in Brazil have had their lives upturned by Glencore’s bauxite mine, which has cut off access to the forest and waterways that once provided food and essential materials. Communities also face ongoing fear of environmental disaster from potential tailings dam failures and altered river flows.
Funding violence against anti-mining activists
In the Philippines and Colombia, there are credible allegations that Glencore and its subsidiaries have funded the violent repression of social movements who oppose its mining projects. In the Philippines for example, Sagittarius Mines Inc – which at the time was majority owned by Xstrata – bought the rights to develop a copper-gold mine within the land of the B’laan, one of the Indigenous communities of Southern Mindanao. The B’laan organised against the occupation of their land and, in response, Xstrata are alleged to have created and bankrolled a secret paramilitary unit that terrorised the community, murdering tribal leaders and their families for opposing the mine. Similar allegations have been levelled against the Colombian mining group Prodeco, which is wholly owned by Glencore. Former Prodeco staff and paramilitary commanders have attested that Prodeco funded and collaborated with paramilitary death squads that assassinated those who lay in the path of the mine’s expansion.
In Peru, in response to a strike called by mine workers, an Xstrata director asked the police to take a “direct, proactive and strong approach” against striking workers, who he described as “sons of whores.” The police brutally attacked the miners, and have been accused of killing two and torturing many more. Xstrata allegedly equipped riot police with rubber bullets and tear gas, and stationed them in barracks in their mine.
Bribery and corruption
The Paradise Papers leak, in 2017, shone a light onto some of the darkest secrets of mining giants, bringing to public attention the very things they had tried their hardest to keep hidden. Glencore was deeply implicated in this; the leaked documents confirmed Global Witness’s allegations that Glencore was involved in bribery and corruption in the DRC.
In 2008, Glencore subsidiary Katanga Mining was worried about the growing desire of the DRC state to retain some of the wealth from its mineral resources. Talks between Katanga and state-owned mining company Gécamines had stalled. So, Glencore co-directors and the chief officers of Katanga met with the disgraced diamond magnate Dan Gertler, and paid him $45m to shut down Gécamines’ demands and secure a favourable contract for Glencore. Gertler delivered, and Glencore’s payment reduced by three quarters, ending up at well below market rate. Gertler was extremely close to powerful members of the administration at the time, and had been criticised by the UN for an arms deal he made with the Congolese army during the brutal civil war.
The legal ramifications from these deals were significant. The Ontario Securities Commission – the regulator for the Toronto Stock Exchange – fined Katanga CAD$30m in 2018, and forced board members to step down, including the head of Glencore’s copper operations, Aristotelis Mistakidis. The US Department of Justice launched its own corruption probe, the UK Serious Fraud Office carried out a bribery investigation, and the Swiss Attorney General launched a criminal investigation.
For more detail on those events and the ruinous history of Glencore’s operations, see our alternative corporate timeline.
Further resources
Glencore alternative corporate timeline
Zine: Global resistance to Glencore
Glencore kills: Mining giant to meet global protests on the day of its AGM
Defending our rights: A call to action against Glencore
Glencore among companies named in UN report on Israel’s economy of genocide