Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Glencore investor update call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand has been raised. Today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Chief Executive Officer, Gary Nagle.
Hi, good afternoon to all of those joining, or good morning, good evening, where you are. I'm joined today by Peter Freyberg as well, our Chief Operating Officer, who will present on our operational results and some forecast production numbers for this year, next year, and also by Steven Kalmin, our Chief Financial Officer, who will talk more balance sheets, distributions, and some cost guidance. We'll get to those later. Let's kick straight off into the presentation and move on to slide four. The business as it stands today is really multifunctional, multidimensional. If you look at slide four, you'll see a little graphic on the left-hand side, which is something you've probably seen before, and it really encompasses what we are as a business.
We're a world-class industrial business producing the minerals needed for today and tomorrow, as well as commodities needed to service today's energy needs. Associated with that is a world-class marketing business. These two businesses, the marketing business and industrial business, really lever off each other. Together, the sum of the parts is much greater. The marketing business is able to use the industrial business, its units, its tons to grow, to create value for our customers and for our stakeholders. The industrial business uses the specific insight and knowledge that the marketing business creates around the world to be able to leverage its position through quality, through blending, and through use of various infrastructure. Associated with these two businesses and interlinked with them is a carbon solution that we provide.
Now, this carbon solution is not only a carbon solution for our customers, but it's also a carbon solution for our own business. Inherently, we have a carbon footprint ourselves, and through our marketing business and our industrial business, this carbon overlay allows us to maximize that position and create value for our business. Lastly, a growing part of our business is a recycling business because the circular economy is critical towards a decarbonized future. As we invest in our recycling business and we produce more and more material out of it becomes integral in how we develop our mining operations and how we work in terms of our marketing business. Those four elements together really set us apart from all our peers in how we run this business.
Taking a step back and where we stand in our business, the markets we operate in are really underinvested today. We see stock levels within the commodities that we market and we produce at record low levels. We see investment in new operations around the world also at very low levels and no material new tons coming on. We see a huge growing demand for the materials that we produce, both for today's energy needs and for tomorrow's decarbonization. That's where the opportunity arises for us to be able to fill that gap and really maximize value for our stakeholders. Our business is really uniquely positioned. We produce, we recycle, we market, we distribute, we source. We're across the spectrum in everything that we do and all the commodities that we do.
It allows us huge amounts of flexibility in our business to be able to adjust to the needs of what the world needs and what our customers need to maximize the value. Associated with that is also our pipeline of projects. This is something that's probably not that visible to the market, and it's something that we wanna shed a bit of light on today, and we have a little bit of more information on it later in the presentation. As the world grows and as we see a continued push towards decarbonization, our pipeline of projects, in particular in our copper department, will be able to fill part of the gap required to meet the growing demands of the world tomorrow.
As a standalone business, if we look at where we stand, we're an experienced management team that has a relentless focus on operating ethically, operating responsibly, operating safely, and providing a high cash generation business for our stakeholders. Steve will dig a little bit more into the numbers, but on illustrative 2023 spot numbers, a free cash flow of over $14 and a half billion. Moving on to slide six. This has been a theme that we've spoken about a little bit during the course of the end of last year and the beginning of this year, is how we've simplified our portfolio and we've aligned our portfolio around the goals where we're going in the group.
As you'll see in the slide, we've noted our key assets and also noted a bunch of assets that we've disposed of during the course of the last 12 months- 24 months. The process of this streamlining of the portfolio has allowed us to really focus on the key assets within the business. We've improved the ESG risk profile of the business significantly. The safety performance has improved. We still have some to go. And we've taken the money that we've realized out of the simplification process and reinvested it largely back within our business to help grow our industrial base into our core assets. The process of simplifying the business is virtually complete.
There are one or two other assets that we still having a look at. These will be done opportunistically, ensuring the business remains fit for purpose for where we're going. It's not just an end goal that we're trying to reach. Moving on to where we're going in the future. I think, you know, the world spends a lot of time, commentators and industry experts, media spend a lot of time writing about the coming copper deficits in the world. The world doesn't seem to get it. They all seem to think for some reason, the world will provide the copper that's needed. It's happened before that whenever people thought there'd be a deficit, mining companies stepped in, they overproduced, prices fell. There was always enough copper to meet the growing demand.
We believe, however, this time it is going to be a bit different. I don't think the world necessarily understands the deficit in copper. We read these studies, and they're just numbers, so we've tried to relook at the deficit that's coming up in the copper market in a slightly different way. On the left-hand side of slide seven, we've taken the IEA net zero scenario, and we've mapped that out in terms of the amount of copper demand required to meet that net zero scenario. On the renewable energy side, whether it be wind, whether it be solar, whether it be battery storage or whatever it may be, the growth required in those in those various elements requires significant amounts of copper.
If we look at the period 2022- 2030, and just modeling what the IEA say will be needed to reach that net zero, over the next eight years, the world will require an additional 100 million tons of copper just for those renewable energy sources. In addition to that, as we see the growing electric vehicle market, particularly in North America and Europe, and then followed by Asia very quickly, we see huge growth in passenger and commercial vehicles. Those vehicles, along with charging stations, will add an additional 20 million tons of copper demand over the next eight years. The total transition copper demand, as we call it in this analysis, is an additional 120 million tons of copper over that eight-year period.
Over and above that, we've obviously still got the existing copper demand, the day-to-day copper demand, whether it's in your refrigerator, your microwave oven, your household, whatever it may be, and other existing overland cables of 235 million tons of copper. Over the next eight years, the world's gonna need over 350 million tons of copper. When we look at global copper supply, however, that barely reaches 300 million tons. That's a 50 million ton shortfall of copper over the next eight years. Maybe just let that sink in a little bit. 50 million tons over eight years. That's the equivalent of having the entire world's copper production shut down for two years. It's impossible. It's impossible. It would mean the world effectively stops, or we cannot meet our net zero ambitions.
The fact is, copper is hugely in short supply. There's a huge deficit coming in copper. As much as people write about it, the price is not yet reflecting it. The world believes the miners will invest in copper mines. They will invest in copper mines, they will come and save the day. Here's the reason why I think that's a little short-sighted. In the middle block, you'll notice all the challenges we as miners have as we try to produce more copper around the world.
They're getting harder and harder, I think all the various mining CEOs have spoken about this as well, whether it be ESG risks, whether it be fiscal stability that we see in countries around the world, whether it be relevant access issues around permitting with local stakeholders or land acquisition, whether it be normal disruptions around infrastructure, strikes, the normal issues of skill shortages. The ability for any miner to bring on a mine in a short period of time is very challenged in today's environment, and we don't expect that to get any easier over time. The second part of the equation comes into what people can bring on.
On the right-hand side, we can see the capital invested in expansionary CapEx for copper over the last 15 years+ the forecast over the next five years. There's a clear trend which way it's going. Now, it's going down for two reasons. Number one, we believe that most of our competitors do not have the kind of copper projects that could be brought on. They actually do not have the projects to spend the exploration capital and the expansion capital on. We see that by the sort of M&A that they're doing and the kind of work that they're doing now. Whatever's being built or is planned to be built has been built. We've seen Anglo's Project Quellaveco, we've seen Teck's QB2, we've seen Robert Friedland's Kamoa. These are projects that are coming on stream now.
There's nothing coming behind it, and the capital program and the capital forecasts illustrate that there isn't much coming. The fact is, if they were there, our peers would be building them. Our peers don't have them, so they're not building them, and they're not spending the money. Where does that leave us as a company? Right now, as a world, we're gonna be short 50 million tons of copper. As a company, that presents us with a huge opportunity. If we move on to slide eight, we have a look at where else we sit as a copper business within Glencore. Within Glencore, we have significant brownfield or organic growth opportunities in the key producing regions around the world.
Our current base business is a little over 1 million tons of copper, and we have the ability to grow that over the coming period of time by over 60% using only our brownfield organic growth projects. These includes expansions at Collahuasi, Antapaccay, PolyMet, Mutanda, and various other projects within our portfolio. That's over 600,000 tons of easily accessible brownfield projects. Now, for us, we're not gonna bring these on in a hurry. We want to see that deficit, that 50 million ton deficit that we forecast, where we see that deficit is absolutely real, and we believe it is, but we'll only see it's real when we see the price is real.
When the price is there, and the world is screaming for the copper that it needs, and we're a few dollars away from demand destruction, that is the time that we will bring on this copper to meet that demand. To the extent that our brownfield projects don't meet that demand, we do have the long-term option of bringing on a greenfield project of El Pachón. It's a very large project in Argentina. It's something that we de-risking significantly now, and it's something that we may have to bring on if the world absolutely needs that copper. We ultimately believe the world will need the copper, but that will be for us, something that we bring on as the last cab off the rank after we have extended our brownfield projects.
The details of the projects are outlined on slide eight. It's clear as the world grows, Glencore has the ability to double its copper production. We sit in a world where the world is transitioning from a fossil fuel-based energy source to a renewable-based energy world. We have a fossil fuel business which will probably halve its production between now and 2035. In that time, we'll be able to use the cash flows from that fossil fuel business to help grow our copper business and double production in our copper business over that very same time. A very neat and tidy use of our fossil fuels, firstly, to provide the energy of today and also to provide the cash flow to build the energy infrastructure of tomorrow. Moving on to slide nine.
Even if we build everything we have, and even if we build our greenfield projects, and even if all our competitors do whatever they can do with the projects that they do or don't have, the world is likely still to be short of copper. Where else are we gonna fill the copper? From recycling. To us, we believe in the circular economy. We believe that the only way to meet the growing demand is not only through primary source metal, but also through the recycling business. We've got a very strong and growing recycling business. During the course of 2021, our recycling business produced over 40,000 tons of copper. That's like having another cobalt within our own business that nobody's ever credits us for. It produced over 1,500 tons of cobalt.
That's the equivalent amount of cobalt that we currently produce out of Murrin. This is a business that's a small business that's been buried in Glencore and is growing significantly and already produces significant amounts of metal. During the course of this year, we've entered into a number of partnerships, strategic alliances, and relationships with the like of Li-Cycle, Ace Green Recycling, Britannia Refined Metals, which is our own operation that we're now repurposing into a more developed recycling business, and various other partnerships that we've entered into as we continue to grow the recycling business. I think just to put into perspective for those who aren't clear on what we really do within the recycling business. On the right-hand side, we've got a bit of a wagon wheel that explains a little bit where we operate.
Historically, the mining companies have only operated on the top left-hand side in the dark blue, in the mining and refining. They've handed it over down to the battery manufacturers and the EV manufacturers, so as to speak. There's parts along this wagon wheel where we can now participate. We'll continue to mine, and we'll continue to refine, and we'll supply that into the precursor, into the precursor market, and the precursor market then feeds that into the cathode active material market. As that CAM is fed into the battery production, there's a significant amount of manufacturing scrap, and that is already a large portion of what our recycling business includes. Taking that battery scrap, reprocessing it, refeeding it, refining it, and reselling it back into the precursor market. Beyond that, the batteries get produced.
They then go for second and mid life and second life until eventually end of life. At end of life, that's again where we step in. We take the batteries, we recycle them, we refine them, and we refeed them back into the precursor and into the cathode active material market. A very neat loop of recycling where we participate at various points along the cycle, but ensuring the circular economy of reusing that material. With our suite of assets, our smelting assets, our collection and distribution networks, our marketing business, our ability to access the materials, process the materials, and redistribute the materials to our customers is unique amongst our peers and something that really sets us apart. Before we move off slide nine, if you look down on the right...
If you're like me, you probably missed QR codes all over the show. If you look at the bottom of slide nine, there's this little QR code. I mean, we have QR codes throughout the presentation, but I would recommend on slide nine, if you have a look at that one and scan that with your phone at some stage and watch the seven-minute video clip, it'll really explain a lot about what our recycling business is and gives you a perspective of the amount we do and the critical nature of recycling within both our business and for the world going forward. We can't forget about our coal business. It supplies the energy needs of today. It's critical in today's transition towards a decarbonized economy.
As the world continues to decarbonize and provide renewable solutions, energy is required today, and that we do through our coal business.We understand the energy transition won't be linear through time or through geography, and we believe it's our responsibility with our coal business to help promote that transition and ensure that those areas of the world that require energy of today using fossil fuels still have the access to that. We do it in a responsible manner, where we will run down our coal business and continue with our commitment to reduce our Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions by 15% by 2026, and by 50% by 2035 of our 2019 base year, with a net zero ambition by 2050.
The key area for us to point out here, this is a Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emission reduction, something that our peers are all struggling with. So much so that if all our peers had the same reduction commitments, targets as we do, in other words, they were all gonna reduce by 50% by 2035. In fact, if it's not only our peers in our in our industry, but if in all industry reduce their Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 targets by 50% by 2035, and if everybody had the same targets and with net zero ambition by 2050, climate change would be a done deal and we could cancel COP28. This is the path that leads us to a decarbonized future.
Other than just sitting on our hands and saying we're gonna run down our coal business responsibly, we're also investing in technology. We've talked a bit before about our CTSCo, and we've presented on it. CTSCo is a project in Australia where we are seeking to capture carbon emissions from the Millmerran Power Station and capture and sequestrate that carbon in the Surat Basin. We've identified an area for storage. It's well over 1 billion tons of storage, so it has significant potential for not only the Millmerran Power Station, but multiple projects within the region as we develop up and prove this technology, both from an industrial and from a commercial scale. It really is a technology that, with the right investments, can assist the world in this decarbonization drive.
We've added another string to that bow in that we're now starting some pre-feasibility work on a blue hydrogen project. Blue hydrogen can be produced from coal at one of our existing coal mines, at our Wandoan coal mine, where we will study the potential production of blue hydrogen at that operation. In converting it to blue hydrogen, we would capture the carbon and sequestrate that at the very same place where we have the CTSCo capture site. Technology is a big part of the drive in Glencore, not only decarbonization, but in everything we do. Peter spends a lot of time in technology in terms of how we mine, how we operate, and a lot of technology time spent, in fact, on a decarbonization drive within our assets.
On that note, I'm gonna hand over to Peter to talk a little bit about our production, our production numbers, and as well as some of the map initiatives that we have in terms of decarbonizing our business.
Thanks, Gary. Good afternoon, good morning to all of those that have joined us today. I need to start off, I'd like to start off by talking about safety. We have a clear plan which is addressing our historical safety record, where we came from, and making sure we get from where we are today to our goal of zero fatalities. This plan is supported by strengthened teams and capability that we have implemented at every level in the organization. Our revised SafeWork two program is built on the foundations of capable leadership and sound risk management. The plan sees a continued rollout of our leadership development programs, our fatal hazard protocols, our assurance processes, and well-managed performance gap closures. We also have focused campaigns at those assets that need them.
Over the last three years, we have halved our fatality incident rates and halved them again. Where we used to run at more than twice the average of our industry peers just three years ago, we are now better than average. Sadly, that hasn't been good enough, the four fatal incidents we've had this year are a stark reminder that the only goal can be zero fatalities. We're doing the right work, the trends say we are getting safer, and the teams know that the zero fatal goal is our key priority. I'm gonna really just talk through and there are slides included in the appendix that detail some of this regarding our outlook. With regard to copper in particular, we'll discuss Katanga and how we go forward with that on the next slide.
For copper, we maintained production at just over 1 million tons over the period that we're reflecting here, which is 2023-2025, showing the 2022 level at around just over 1 million tons, having lost some production at Katanga this year, and I will go through that in a bit more detail. Our cobalt outlook over the period, we primarily produce cobalt from our DRC operations, although we still have another 6,000 tons that comes from Murrin and our Canadian operations.
we see our cobalt tonnages increasing from around 45,000 tons this year with a bit of a drop-off in 2023, which is driven by demand to some extent, and then increasing over the period as we ramp up Mutanda and Katanga up towards the 60,000 ton mark. Zinc, we see flat production over the next three years and then a slight decline into 2025. The production this year has been constrained at Zhairem. This is expected to ramp up in the second half of next year towards the long-term average of around 170,000 tons per annum. As we ramp up Zhairem, we do lose tons at the likes of Lady Loretta and some other production in our North American assets. That gives us that flat outcome over the period.
Nickel this year was impacted quite significantly by the strike at Raglan, which took 15 weeks. Koniambo this year is having a better year than previous year, albeit not achieving what it should in terms of its ramp-up, but we are continuing to step up and improve there and expect the tons to get towards the 30,000 ton mark next year and grow beyond that. Over the period, we see the decline from the existing nickel and phrase operations ahead of the ramp-up for the Onaping Depth Project, which will first hit ore in 2024, then stabilize around 2026. The ferrochrome number you see there really is about hitting the sweet spot from a value point of view.
We are constrained there with power costs and power availability and season-seasonality, and we've obviously considered market factors and logistics in setting that number where it is. Coal over the next few years is expected to be flat. Obviously, we don't expect the same level of interruptions such as those caused this year by the extreme weather events in New South Wales and the blockades that we had in Colombia. However, the recovery that we expect to see in the coming years is offset through closures such as Newlands, Integra, and Liddell, which happens over this forecast period. Looking at Katanga. It's been a challenging year at Katanga and disappointing in terms of output, but a lot of excellent work has been done to address the issues that did impact us. That work puts us in a far stronger position going forward.
On the geotechnical side, which we've discussed previously and which arose early in the year, we detected some movements in the slopes and identified structures that represented a risk. Managing cautiously, we obviously stepped back from the mining and lost some production. These issues have been addressed through design, depressurization work, implementing enhanced monitoring systems, including satellite, upgraded radars and in-ground arrays, which help us understand how the materials move. We've improved the controls to a point where we have materially reduced the risk associated with mining the current mining block. We've also commenced mining in the next major block and are increasing total volumes there next year to expedite the opening up of the ore in this area.
From an ore quality point of view, over the last two years, we've encountered and learned to deal with high gangue acid-consuming materials, and you'll see that the slide refers to high GAC materials, such that we have a short-term plan that manages through selective processing. We've also advanced process design and flow sheet work so that we can modify the plant so it is able to process and ramp back up in 2025. Lastly, the business has been bedeviled by electrical interruptions relating to transmission issues in the DRC. These have been partially addressed through the commissioning of the cogen plant, which is linked to our acid plant there, and are likely to be more fully resolved in the next two to three years through the use of battery systems and some on-site generation to bridge any power gaps that may arise in the future.
I think excellent work has been done there. There's a bit of a reset to the baseline for the next two years, around the 205,000 tons of copper per annum level, then ramping up to 240,000-270,000 tons per annum of copper thereafter. We've got to talk about how we manage our carbon footprint and decarbonization. As was mentioned, Glencore has set itself the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, and that is, as Gary discussed, across Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. We are targeting this with interim steps of 50% reduction by 2035, and before that, a 15% reduction by 2026. There are a number of unique features in our approach and in the situation that we find ourselves in.
One of these is that the bulk of our Scope 3 emissions are associated with our coal business. Through its managed decline, which is aimed at supporting today's energy needs whilst finding our growth into the future facing metals, we are actually able to reduce these emissions without having to rely on yet to be developed technologies. I think as Gary said, we are different to our peers in that regard. There is certainty around us in terms of how we get there. At the same time, we're actively working on reducing our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions across our entire portfolio of assets over and above what results from the decline of the coal assets.
We do this by identifying a significant range of opportunities, including operating efficiencies, fuel switching, use of renewables, and technology options, which we then evaluate, cost, rank, and map on a group marginal abatement cost curve. This allows us to pursue the most cost-effective reductions possible, hopefully staying one step ahead of any carbon price, and therefore doing this value accretively or at no cost. It is worth noting the scale and position of renewables on our MAC. This leads us to another important feature which is that our key assets, and you saw the list of key assets earlier on, tend to be geographically well-positioned for sourcing renewables. That largely applies in South America, it applies in the DRC, it applies in South Africa, Australia, Europe, as well as in Kazakhstan.
These assets mostly have grid access to renewable energy sources, which means the switch does not have to be capital intensive. We are able to and actively pursuing Scope 2 emission reductions across our portfolio. Overall, we have a healthy portfolio of opportunities identified, totaling half our baseline of Scope 1 and Scope 2, and a very significant number of these should be value accretive in the short term, and the balance of which will likely become value accretive as we see carbon prices increase. This slide really evidences the very significant work that is being done across the business to address Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. All the commodity units are doing work across all of the categories, whether it be efficiency, fuel switching, renewables, or process improvement.
Just looking vertically through the groups, starting with copper, we have a number of PPAs already locked in in South America, but also advancing process efficiencies at Antapaccay through, for example, work on coarse particle flotation. There's also an active fleet electrification project, another Latin American mine. This type of work is all being done to enable us to roll it out to other sites, into our new projects, and into the other commodity units once proven. Coal. Coal is, as we keep saying, not just managing the decline, but addressing its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions along the way. As you might be aware, over the past decade, we have abated 28 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by flaring waste gas or using it for generation.
We continue to spend around $60 million a year on gas management. We're working on on-site solar, PV, as well as virtual power purchase agreements. Work is being done in that department on energy storage and with a number of pits with significant depth and capacity, pump storage is an option that is being considered. Obviously, with large diesel fleets involved in open cut mining, we're looking at options to reduce diesel usage, including electrification where possible. Looking at our ferroalloys business and ferroalloys is a very big emitter principally because it is a very significant power consumer.
We are very advanced with work on off-site PPAs, looking at abating well over 1 million tons of carbon dioxide through off-site PPAs, as well as on-site solar projects, which would target somewhere around 300,000 tons of CO2 per annum. Other work that is happening is obviously heat-intensive processes, the smelters, and where we can capture waste heat and use that for generation, we are trying that. Looking at our nickel business, we have a range of initiatives, including renewables displacing gas or diesel, and we're also doing some very interesting work to address emissions arising from solution neutralization at Murrin. Beyond this, I think it is worth saying that... Sorry, just talking about our zinc business.
We're also looking at a range of efficiency opportunities there. Particularly across our European smelters, where we have high power consumption and high power bills with where European power prices have been, all of the efficiencies or any renewable integration that we can do there will add tremendous value. Beyond that, what's not shown here, for example, even within our oil refinery, we are taking major steps to improve efficiencies, reduce our oil usage, and so forth. Across all departments, all the industrial assets, there are projects addressing Scope 1 and Scope 2, and that was reflected in the MAC on the previous slide that showed the scale of the opportunities relative to our baseline, which are very significant. Thank you.
Thanks, Peter. Martin, if you can move to the capital allocation slide. On Slide 19, you'll be familiar with most of these themes, and there's nothing particularly new here, and we'll cover off all the points later on the slides, covering both capital structure, reinvestment, and our shareholder distribution policy. With that, maybe let's jump straight onto Slide 20. This was the finessing of our capital structure and distribution flow sheet that we developed at this time last year as part of our investor update, where we set the $10 billion optimal cap, where we'll run our business, generate cash flow beyond that $10 billion, have a base predictable cash flow distribution that's linked to the cash flows in respect to the previous year.
There's a policy set around $1 billion flat in respect of marketing, which will be a certain payout ratio depending on the performance of that business and we'll payout also 25% of equity industrial cash flows in respect of the previous year. That's been applied as we report in February each year in respect of the previous year. We'll declare the base distribution, it's payable in the two installments, then as we progressively move through the year, as we generate cash below that $10 billion, we'll look to top up the business back towards the $10 billion via a mix of buybacks and additional cash distributions as we see fit.
If you look at the graph on the right-hand side, you can see the huge progress that's been made in the business cash flow generation and debt reduction since December 2020. We're at $15.8 billion of net debt. By June 2021, we're down to $10.6 billion. By December 2021, we were at $6 billion. That allowed for the $4 billion to be paid out earlier in the year. We then reported net debt a few months ago of $2.3 billion, and that allowed a top up of $4.5 billion at that particular point, taking account of installments and some of the investigation payments that we made in the second half of the year.
In total, you can see under the $10 billion number over there, you can see $8.5 billion of shareholder returns that we've announced in 2022. Most of it would have been expensed in cash. Of the remaining $3 billion buyback, which we announced in August this year, we would have completed $2 billion of that by the end of this year, with $1 billion remaining to be executed during January and February. Just as you're looking for a debt cash flow cut-off potentially at the end of the year, $2 billion of that is expected to be delivered around that time.
We are both the policy and the application of how we're looking at maintaining conservative financial leverage, generating the cash, and not paying dividends, if you like, in anticipation of cash, generating the cash, and ultimately returning it back as and when opportunities arise. The application of this more conservative financial profile has been sufficiently and conservatively mentioned and warranted by S&P and Moody's as being both potentially consistent with a credit upgrade into single A. We've got positive outlooks recently from both Moody's and S&P, which I think is strong validation of both the sustainability and the balance within our capital structure in terms of leverage discipline, and rewarding shareholders as and when cash is ultimately generated.
In terms of net debt leverage, net debt adjusted EBITDA, as we have brought our debt down to negligible levels, it's almost a zero position. Just pro forma-wise, EBITDA, you'll see later on, around $28 billion at spot with a net debt, even if we're at the cap of $10 billion, that would translate into a leverage ratio net debt EBITDA of 0.35x, which is very conservative as we manage the business. If we look onto the next slide, in terms of CapEx, this is some new information clearly and would be of interest. The way that I like to think of our CapEx at the moment, this year we would have spent arguably lower than people would have expected.
We guided a number of $5.3 billion at the beginning of this year. We'll finish with lagging in terms of cash expenses, some of it's projects, some of it's also not chasing CapEx in a hyperinflationary, very tight consumer market as we have. We'll finish around $4.9 billion, in fact under the $5.3 billion. We've effectively pushed out the timing of CapEx from 2022 out to 2023-2024 of around $800 million combined. From a timing perspective, if that all had been expensed this year and had been deployed into the balance sheet, we would have had closer to $5.7 billion, which would have just been an inflationary movement up from the $5.3 billion that we announced at the beginning of this year.
If we look at the periods, it's better to look at cumulative periods. I'll explain the variances between where we were last year and where we are now in terms of CapEx. The cumulative of the average CapEx that we now have across 2022-2024 is $5.5 billion. You can see on the graph on the bottom right. In the prior year over those same periods, just looking at the white bars and the blue bars, the prior year was $4.8 billion. That's a $700 million increase per annum or $2.1 billion cumulative over that three-year period.
In terms of what's moved between last year and this year, inflation has had a big impact, not just on the OpEx environment as well, but also across the CapEx spend. We pointed out some OEM and contractor price escalation, but also quite a significant part of our CapEx, particularly in the deferred stripping within our big open cut operations, is really just capitalized OpEx. It is labor, it is diesel, it is explosives. All of these factors have gone up. Generally, labor circa 10%, explosives 50% increases we've seen in some of those prices year on year. Diesel's up more than 50% across those particular period.
Cumulatively, if we start with the gap or the difference of $2.1 billion against prior year, the base spend across three years was $14 billion. That was the $4.8 billion over three years. We've seen roughly a 10% just inflationary impact as a step up. We're assuming moderation in inflation going forward, we haven't necessarily built in much as we roll now from 2022 into 2023, 2024 and beyond. There's a one-off step up of circa 10% across all the different categories. That's $1.4 billion of that $2.1 billion. Where else have we seen an increase since last year? We've seen the introduction of a new project that didn't exist last year. We've highlighted that in expansionary CapEx.
In addition to copper, Kolwezi still occupies the largest expansion CapEx across its desalination fourth line, fifth and fifth mill of $1.1 billion or so cumulatively across 2023-2025. We've got the introduction of the new, the Horne Emissions Reduction Project, as we've called it. That's a big operation, a smelter that we have in Canada. It's supported by the refining operation, CCR. There was quite a bit of news coverage during the year around the need to and being on track and around working with governments and, and agreements going forward to bring that over a multi-year period to a almost a zero emission operation.
It's been working within its regulatory environment, but we're looking at significantly expanding it in terms of backhouses and various emission captures and bringing that to the lower, a 3% emission factor as that moves through the various years. That's cumulatively around $300 million of additional CapEx that wasn't within our December 2021 plan. We do expect a return. It's not just a, if you like, yes, it's sustaining CapEx around that operation, but it will significantly improve the capacity of the operation, the ability to treat a complex array of inputs. It's a key part of our recycling business going forward, as Gary has said.
Currently, it's in fact one of the main cornerstones of what we have in recycling, particularly in the e-scrap inputs, that business will only be enhanced as we spend this CapEx and set it up for the next wave of the recycling expansion that we have as well. We've also added, although it doesn't contribute meaningfully volumes, as Peter went through the volume graphs earlier on, we have positioned Mutanda for a sulfides project. The CapEx of that, we're positioned to start spending towards the end of this period, that will only come in 2025 and beyond. There is an additional $100 million of that $400 million project that Gary mentioned as one of our brownfield expansions earlier on. There is $100 million in 2025.
Also referring to various projects that Peter said, we have positioned within our CapEx around $200 million cumulatively over this period in respect of decarbonization and technology initiatives. Multi projects are on the go, particularly in the copper business, many down in Latin America. Peter had mentioned those in Antamina, those in Lomas Bayas as well, and some spend that we're positioning potentially in South Africa. There's $200 million combined across those various businesses as well. We do believe that they'll get a return. They form part of the MAC initiative. We haven't necessarily built those returns into our cost profiles going forward, but we have positioned around $200 million cumulatively in CapEx.
Overall, $5.5 billion over 2022-2024 or $5.6 billion over 2023-2025, the increase has been fully explained by those various factors as well. We also have quite extensive exploration campaigns that we are bringing into the budget period, particularly in Kazakhstan, Canada around Raglan as well as Sudbury, Australia around the Isa region. There's also some Antamina life extension work within the latter part of this budget period. If we move on to our very familiar and regular updates of our illustrative spot-free cash flow, we're now rolling in our various 2023 physicals into the equation. We've got some more detailed slides on pages 30-34, which is useful to consider in conjunction with this particular slide.
Peter's been through the production pathway in 2023 and beyond. That was on Slide 14, which is broadly a flat production profile in those various years prior to the potential expansions, particularly in copper, where we have some of those inorganic, I mean some of the organic brownfield expansion. We've also used the pricing and the FX assumptions on Page 35, particularly for the purpose of by-product cost structures. That's very relevant for our metals divisions as we see. If we look at copper, we're expecting a fairly flat cost structure at $0.92 into 2023, having revised up our mid-year full year 2022 guidance up to $0.93. That's elevated relative to recent periods.
Some of the lower Katanga copper production is certainly a factor in 2022 and 2023 before we start seeing the recovery out in the 2024-2025 period as Peter spoke about later on. We're also going through a period of weak cobalt prices. That's both in the metal price. Equally the payabilities for the hydroxide material that we are producing. For 2023, we're also expecting a dip in cobalt production before we see recovery from both Katanga and Mutanda from the 2024-2025 period. Cobalt's a big factor to watch in 2023, both in terms of volume and prices.
We've set these costs up as we see the market at the moment basis, those prices and volumes. We will see that fluctuate up or down depending on the development of that market, particularly during 2023. The other by-product pricing is generally showing strength at the moment. We do generate some gold, some silver, and some zinc, particularly in that business as well. The zinc business. Just with copper, we'll see on the illustrative cash flow and EBITDA later on. That's generating $5.3 billion of EBITDA at spot price today. That's up from the mid-year update of $5.1 billion.
In terms of zinc, we will see an increase, a slight increase up to $0.35, net of gold and other by-products in that particular business as well. We are being impacted by macro factors, particularly in Europe on energy costs, where we have a smelting business. Some of that pro-production has been taken offline. We've got higher TCs, which if we're longer on mining over smelting, that will affect the overall volumes and cost structure within that business. We're seeing reduced by-product revenue somewhat temporarily. In 2023, particularly in Isa, we've got periods of lower lead and silver, that's impacting through to the $0.35. On nickel, we're looking at an increase again, somewhat temporarily while we wait for the new mine expansions and life extensions, particularly in Canada.
We've got Onaping Depths and the Raglan Two expansions, starting progressively through 2024, 2025 and 2026. We are have the legacy mines in Canada. We do see lower nickel. We've got lower by-products in terms of copper, as well as the significant inflationary impacts from energy and consumable impacts that have primarily impacted nickel work, as well as Murrin, which consumes large amounts of reagents and sulfur and the like. We produce cobalt as a by-product from Murrin, which as it's doing to our copper business, has also translated into higher costs within that business. There is a period of higher costs within the nickel business. In aggregate, it's generating $1.5 billion. We need to be patient in that business as it works through its major expansion project, particularly in Canada.
We get more stable and steady production out of Koniambo, and that should see that business then, towards the back end of the period, increase its contribution cash flow to the Glencore business. Coal on the right-hand side, you can see a cost of 77 against a mid-year update of 79 for this year. Slight declines as we've mark-to-market diesel prices. We've got somewhat lower forward price projections through the spot illustrative period, which does then translate into lower royalties that are linked to those prices, particularly in Colombia and in Australia. The coal business we'll see later on doing $16.7 billion. At the June update, it was doing $20.1 billion.
You can see we've got a lower realization later on also because we've seen larger discounts between the Newcastle price at which a decent proportion of our coal is selling into that. Equally, we do have coal from various operations which is going into different quality markets, different geographic markets of which that discount to the Newcastle has continued to widen. Just showing and demonstrating that no two coals are the same in this business as well. We'll run through and show what that means from an illustrative spot as well. If we then look into the details on Slide 23 with some of the details on Slide 28, they're probably worth having side by side.
You can see the EBITDA of $28.7 billion made up of the copper at $5.3 billion, the 904,000 relevant tons of sales at a $265 margin. All the prices were cut as of December 1st. For the most part, they've picked up as of now, some upside across all the businesses in respect of macros. Copper was $8,200 when we cut this, it's now $8,400, we're up about 2.5%. Zinc at $1.6 billion. Prices on zinc are up 4%, and nickel prices are up 8%. All those on a spot basis would be slightly higher. Coal, $16.7 billion, of course, the largest number here.
That's using an average forward Newcastle price as we took it off the off the screens at a particular point in time. We're running 340. Of course, it's quite backwardated, so much stronger in the early months and then leveling off 12 months down the curve. We were $340. We took a portfolio mix adjustment of 113, give a net realization of $228 across 110. That reflects all our various qualities. It reflects coke and coal effectively as a by-product also within that business. If we look at what that looked like at June, we were actually slightly higher on Newcastle at 352 and lower on portfolio. We were realizing $245 a ton back in June, and now we're realizing $228.
We've seen a $17 per ton contraction purely to do with the mix and the larger discounts with some of the lower quality coals or the non-Newcastle coals we're otherwise realizing within the market. It is still a tight in some areas, not necessarily as tight in other areas of those particular markets. 28.7 billion EBITDA, that's assuming marketing midpoint. Of course, it's performed much stronger this year, and we've given guidance in addition to the $3.7 billion in 2022 for the first half. We expect second half even above the top end, but certainly more muted compared to the first half of the year. That should exceed $1.6 billion in the second half on marketing.
Be an EBIT then, in excess of $5.3 billion for the full year. We're looking at just for illustrative purpose, if we go back to the middle of the range, $2.7 billion+ 400 of EBITDA. We're at $27 billion. Our cash taxes and interest is $8 billion. That's $6.5 billion taxes around a 30% effective rate. Net interest of $1.5 billion, assuming both current rates across our debt as well as further rate tightenings of 75 basis points across interest. CapEx has risen up to $6.1 billion. That's $6 billion on the industrial, $100 million on the marketing. That's somewhat punitive to an illustrative period because it's a CapEx for 2023, but then it comes down into the fives as we move forward.
$14.6 billion illustrative across the business at this point in time, providing a nice cash flow tailwind clearly as we move into 2023. With that, I'll hand back to Gary to close it out.
Thanks, Steve. Just a couple slides to finish off before we move to Q&A. On Slide 25, we just outline some of our priorities for 2023. Our first and foremost priority, that's not a 2023 priority, it's a priority full stop, is safety. It is our unrelenting drive within this business to have a business that causes zero harm. It is everybody's single most important focus every single day that they come to work. We have seen some improvements, unfortunately, not good enough, as we've seen a number of fatalities this year. We are seeing improvements in our lagging indicators, in many of our leading indicators as well, and we continue on this unrelenting drive to have a zero harm business. A second priority for us and a key priority, clearly is climate.
Peter spoken a lot about the MAC opportunities. As we progress through the year, we'll continue to invest in those opportunities, expand those opportunities, and implement those opportunities. In most cases, in virtually all these cases, in fact, as Peter showed in his slides, these MAC projects not only reduce carbon, but they are NDP positive for our business anyway. They're good for the environment, they're good for our business, they're value accretive, and these are projects we'll be doing regardless. We continue to invest in those and ensure that they add value to our business, something critical in how we run this business. Along a similar theme is our Scope 3 emissions and our responsible rundown of our coal business.
We've outlined a bit more detail in this presentation. That by 2035, the 50% reduction in our Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions is encompassing the closure of 12 coal mines between from when we started this in 2019, and by 2035, we'll have closed 12 coal mines within our portfolio. These will be responsibly shut with a proper just transition and proper environmental management and closure plans associated with those mines that are required to be closed. We'll prioritize our CapEx towards our future facing metals. Clearly, that's where the business is going, and a priority of capital towards these projects, which will be substantially de-risked, significantly de-risked before we invest any funds into growing these future facing mineral projects.
We talked a little bit about abatement. It's a project that we'll continue to work on, our CTSCo, along with our blue hydrogen project in Australia. Definitely something for the future and something that we shouldn't ignore. Obviously, our recycling business and the circularity of our economy and our resources is something we'll continue to focus on and grow that. On the operational side, with our absolute focus on operational discipline and excellence, Peter has his focus assets, and he continues to ensure that they meet the various thresholds and targets that he sets for them. We've got the Zhairem ramp up, which we're looking forward to hitting nameplate capacity towards the second half of next year.
Our Mutanda ramp up, which is going nicely, and the recovery of Katanga, given the current constraints we have in that business, will be key focus for Peter and his team during the year. On the financial side, Peter spoke about our balance sheet commitment and our strong triple B Baa credit rating through the cycle and potentially even for an upgrade. Depends how things go. Certainly, we will keep our balance sheet very strong and maximize free cash flow. Steve's illustrated over $14.5 billion free cash flow at spot prices for 2023. Of course, as a cash center business, what does that come with? That comes up with predictable shareholder returns by way of cash dividends and buybacks for our shareholders.
Looking beyond 2023 and where we're going and who we are, we certainly have the right strategy. We have a sector leading climate ambition to be net zero by 2050. We have practical steps in place that takes us there through our rundown of our coal business to be down 15% by 2026 and 50% down by 2035. Our business, as we've gone through in a bit more detail earlier, is unique. We produce, we source, we market, we distribute, and we recycle, something that none of our competitors can say they do or claim that they can do. We do it all. We're a one-stop solution, and we provide everything we need for our customers.
We provide the portfolio of minerals and required for the decarbonization, but we also provide the energy needed for today. We provide that transition into tomorrow's decarbonized world. We've got the right business model to do that. We are a very flexible business that moves with what the world needs and what the world requires in how it develops and progresses towards a decarbonized world. The one key element about our business, which perhaps has not been evident to the market, is that, in fact, we are a growth business. We are not a business that just stays still. Historically, we've always looked at M&A opportunities, and that remains something on the table for us. We see value for us and where it makes sense for us.
Of course, any M&A opportunity has to compete with other internal uses of capital, such as buying back our own stock. However, M&A opportunities are available to us. Even without M&A, we have our own growth business. We're a growth stock, where as we've illustrated, we can double our coal, excuse me, double our copper business over the coming period from about 1 million tons a year to 2 million tons of copper a year. We have a very much or a very strong recycling business. The growth of that business is exponential. Already, we produce over 40,000 tons of copper a year and over 1,500 tons of cobalt a year out of that business, and the growth potential of that business is enormous. We also have other areas of growth in our business.
As our copper business grows, so will our cobalt business. Our zinc business has growth options, and our nickel business has growth options. As a growth stock, we are the mining stock to go to be able to find that growth and price that growth in the market. As we do that, we will ensure we do it responsibly and ethically. We do that in every part of our business wherever we operate. We've got a population or a portfolio of large scale, long life, and low carbon assets, which will provide the backbone for the decarbonization of the world. That provides a highly cash center business with very strong free cash flows going into the future. With that, we'll turn it over to Q&A.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. Please stand by roster. Our first question comes from the line of Krishan Agarwal with Citi.
Hello.
Hi, Krishan.
Thanks a lot for taking my question. I have two question, first on the M&A ceiling of $16 billion. I mean, you laid out no vision where your portfolio volumes are broadly staying flat while there are growth functionality in copper. Would you mind discussing as in what are the other preferred commodities for you to look at for this M&A functionality going forward?
Yeah, M&A we will certainly be focused on the future facing minerals and metals. It'll certainly be in the area that we know. It'll be in copper, it'll be in nickel, it'll be in zinc, it'll be in cobalt, and probably in aluminum. Those are the key minerals and metals for the decarbonization drive of the world. These kind of M&A opportunities aren't gonna be sort of the traditional takeover premium type ones that we see. These will be ones that are strategic for Glencore, where Glencore has some sort of strategic advantage, whether it be because we are existing shareholding, whether we have existing partnerships with the current owners, whether we have existing infrastructure nearby or associated with them, the current partners or owners.
These will be very strategic type M&A opportunities and not simple highest bid wins.
Got it. The second thing on the copper growth volumes, I mean, the guidance until 2025 is forecasting a flat volumes, but then the potential is 1 million tons. What kind of a realistic timeline between 2025-20 30 you're targeting for these, you know, copper volumes? More importantly, when the market should expect the CapEx approval for these volumes to actually come through?
Krishan, it's a bit of a chicken and egg. I mean, we are de-risking these projects as we speak right now. We're doing all the types of things that one needs to be doing. We're buying land, we're consulting with communities, we're doing environmental permitting, we're doing feasibility studies and the likes. When we actually decide to bring those tons onto the market, will simply be dependent on the market. We anticipate the demand will be there. However, we are not the kinda company that will bring on tons into a market where we anticipate the demand will be there. When we see the actual and real demand is physically there and the market absolutely needs those tons, that's when we bring the tons into the market.
It's not about trying to not be clear on when we bring the tons into the market, but we don't wanna promise tons into a market that perhaps by the time we bring those tons into market, for whatever reason it is, the market isn't there to support it. We are not prepared to bring tons into a market that's not absolutely screaming for that extra additional volume. What we've outlined in this presentation is we have real brownfield projects and a greenfield project that are real, that are executable, and can and will be brought on when the market needs those tons.
Understood. Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jason Fairclough with Bank of America.
Yep. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for the presentation. Look, just wanted to talk a little bit specifically about the copper growth in Argentina. El Pachón, Greenfield project, not usually Glencore's thing. You're saying 350,000 tons of copper equivalent, $5.6 billion. I'm just wondering, how up to date is that number? It does seem to be a bit on the light side for a project of that size these days, and I'm just wondering, how do you think about developing a project like that, Gary? Is this something you do yourself, or would you look to bring in a partner with deep pockets?
Yeah, Jason, I mean, maybe Peter can talk on the $5.6 billion. On developing it ourselves, look, we aren't gonna go into a project like this with our eyes shut. You know, there's a lot of work to be done to de-risk it significantly. Is it possible that we bring someone in as a partner? Yes, possibly. Anglo did it quite successfully in Quellaveco. We could do it here as well. That is an option. It doesn't mean we will. We could look at doing it ourselves, but before we do anything, the amount of de-risking of that project would be substantial. I think, you know, we're a long way off, and the market shouldn't get too excited that we're putting a trigger on a greenfield project anytime soon.
We've got a number of brownfield projects that we will execute before that anyway, and in the interim, we'll be massively de-risking the El Pachón project.
Just to, hi, Jason, Peter here. Just to touch on what the project's all about is that we have very significant resources there, 1.5 billion tons of measured indicator, which 1/3 is measured and relatively good grades. Also very large strip ratios. From a mining perspective, very straightforward. From a processing perspective, again, because you've got decent grades, it's the concentrator we don't think is overly complex. Looking at the social aspects and where the mine is situated, the expenditure around community type issues relative to other projects that we've seen in South America, not too high. In terms of product transport, fairly straightforward, truck to rail and then rail to the port if you consider an Argentinian option. Fairly straightforward project.
Although greenfield, we consider relatively low risk.
I think the number is for where we are in our decision-making reasonably okay at this point in time. Obviously, it's still gonna go through more detailed phases, but we're not uncomfortable with where the number is at the moment.
Okay. Could I just follow up with another one? Just in terms of the ag marketing, there was a bit of discussion around a potential IPO. Any update there?
No update at this stage, Jason. We obviously, Viterra guys are in the process of bedding down the Gavilon acquisition. It's been a very successful acquisition. Things are looking very good there. They're integrating. Synergies are looking, in fact, bigger than we thought they would be. No progress on Viterra beyond that.
Okay. Thanks a lot, both. I appreciate the questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sylvain Brunet with Exane BNP.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just to follow up on El Pachón on the capital intensity. I know it's early days about transport, but anything that would explain why you'd be more so on the sort of high end of the capital intensity of projects of similar size? My two other questions are first on coal after that, if you could give us a bit more color behind the 10-year downward revision in coal production going into 2023. My last question is on Koniambo. How should we think about the end game for this asset, please? Thank you.
Okay. On capital intensity, we're looking at a fit for purpose project here with the required IRRs for our business. If the capital intensity is higher or lower than different projects, that is what it is. At the end of the day, we chase the IRR on that project basis, the right returns for our business, the right risk profiling and risk-adjusted capital profile that we need for the business. If it lands up being a higher capital cost on an intensity basis, but IRRs are significant for our business, that's fine.
We want to ensure that the capital that we provide is in fact correct, and we don't see what others have seen, which is blowout of capital and your budget, which you believe is a low capital intensity, lands up being a high capital intensity post the event. Koniambo is still work in progress. We had a very good month last month. The month before that wasn't as good. You know, it's an up and down operation in that sense. We've seen some strong nickel prices. Fair nickel doesn't necessarily get the full benefits of the strong nickel prices, but we continue to work closely with our partners on that asset, to continue in a continual improvement process. The question-- what is the question on coal?
On coal, just guidance, volume guidance used to be 120 million tons, talking 110 million tons now.
Sylvain, what we've done is, given the year we've had, we've just sort of reset some sort of probabilities, outcomes, and factors around situations that we faced across all three of our origins. We've had obviously, if you think Australia, you've had much seasonally much wetter weather across all of East Coast. That doesn't look like it's statistically going to end anytime soon. We've sort of downgraded weather-related disruptions there that have had an impact in ultimate production. In Colombia, we have experienced higher incidents of blockades and other interruptions as well there. We've sort of reset operating environment and days around that, reflecting that. South Africa itself has had capacity and constraints around particularly the rail corridor and Transnet performance.
It's across all those three, that we've effectively had a reset around reality against what in theory had a normal, more normal operating environment, a more normal performance in these geographies of, say, three to five years ago.
Is that also included now in your target to reduce coal production by 35%? Sorry, by 40% by 2035? I mean, is that reset on this new normal 110 million tons now or the previous number?
Well, it just means that we've had a faster acceleration downwards already.
Yeah.
Ultimately, the end game by 35% and net zero is as per it was. We've had a steeper step down.
Mm-hmm
to being around the 110s, whereas we might have thought 120s or 118 million tons or something, and then ultimately getting it down. These anomalies or these factors that I've described are not necessarily expected to be there forever. These are shorter-term considerations. We'll have to look at disruption days and actual events within the next year or two and reassess what sort of allowances that we do make, that this is not May Day. This is not a longer-term impact around 35% and zero. This is a next two to three years production guide.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Gary.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Liam Fitzpatrick with Deutsche Bank.
Good afternoon, everyone. Two or three questions. The first one on growth and CapEx. Your peer group has taken to guiding CapEx in the future years to like a channel capturing, you know, planned but unapproved projects. Once you start on some of these brownfield projects that you're outlining here? What is a realistic level of CapEx that we should be thinking about for Glencore? Is it up to $6 billion? Is it up to $8 billion? You know, any kind of steer on that would be helpful. Gary, just your comment on when the market is screaming for the copper. I mean, realistically, given the permitting challenges, construction periods and so on, how do you think about, you know, timing these projects over the next three to five years?
Just one on the Viterra. I take your previous comments, in terms of no update for now. Is the longer-term strategy to ultimately exit this business, or do you still see this as a potentially core part of Glencore? Thank you.
All right, let me go first. I'll talk on the timing of the projects in Viterra, and then Steve can talk on the CapEx. On the timing of the projects, I mean, you're right, Liam. I mean, you don't always get it spot on right. In the end of the day, we'd rather be late than early to the party, because at the end of the day, you know, if we do see the Goldman Sachs $15,000 copper, and I certainly believe we will see that, we'd rather be coming into the market when it's $15,000 and miss some $12,000 copper. That's not the end of the world. What do we do in the meantime? We completely de-risk our projects to the extent that we can.
We go out and we permit to the extent that we can. We do the environmental studies. We get the environmental licenses. We consult with communities. We acquire land. We do feasibility studies. We do front-end engineering. We do all these sorts of things. We work on logistical solutions. We do all the type of things that one would do, but we don't yet build and bring on the tons. That's the secret. If we then bring on the tons, we'll bring on the tons when we see the market higher. If we're a bit late to the party, no problem, because if that party starts, it's not gonna end both our tons. We wanna bring the tons into the party when the party's going, and we don't wanna be the guys who come early and spoil the party.
With respect to Viterra, look, Viterra is a terrific business. It's now with the Gavilon, the Gavilon part of it is a real world-class business covering all the major geographies. The frustration we've always had is that on a sum of the parts basis, we don't believe that we're getting the true value for Viterra on the sum of the parts basis when you look at how our share price performs. You know, we've got a number of options around it and who knows which one we go down. Look, one option is we can keep the investment and there are some synergies between Glencore and Viterra in terms of the shipping markets and the likes.
We could keep it as it starts generating the huge amounts of cash flows we believe it will generate, ultimately the market won't be able to ignore the fact that it is so cash generative and we'll be able to see that value within our share price. With that said, we are looking at all other alternatives to see what the best way to maximize value for our shareholders is.
Liam, I think in terms of in terms of CapEx, on Slide 21, we obviously show 2023, 2024, then tapering down to $5 billion by 2025. That reflects today's production profile. It reflects today's cost environment as well, which has been inflated by at least 10% relative to 12 months ago. If we look at Gary's slides earlier on, where it's looking at the brownfields, Kolwezi, Katanga, Mutanda and the likes, leaving El Pachón aside for now, I can't see a scenario in which our CapEx would then go on sustainably above, say, $6 billion. That then provides $1 billion per annum up from 2025 from $5 billion- $6 billion within which to accommodate budgets, bearing in mind that many of these projects are obviously multi-year projects.
You're not spending it all in one year. You're spreading it out over three, four, five years. Some are staggered, some are phased. That easily should be able to accommodate it within that $5 billion-$6 billion range. Would obviously need to bring the compensating ton and potential portfolio cost reductions that CapEx was to ultimately deliver. Now, El Pachón is in a category of its own to some extent, and as Gary said, it may be something we run ourselves. It certainly would be an asset that could lend itself to some risk-sharing and some potential partnership that you may get some upfront disposal proceeds and then some CapEx sharing.
Even if you take it at the 100% level and assume those are the CapEx numbers, this would be something that potentially trails some of the brownfields. There's still some work to be done, but we are doing a lot of work and some good progress being made. Again, that might be something that would be, again, staggered over three to five years worth of CapEx. That temporarily, if we were ever to do that 100% and all these assets were to be sanctioned, broadly at the same time, that would be the one that may tip us above in the six to seven range for a period of time, depending on what we're doing on the others.
El Pachón aside, I would've thought, we wouldn't be increasing six and we need to bring those corresponding tons in. We'll need to see how and what and and bring you the sort of assumptions that you need to think about El Pachón at the appropriate time.
Okay. Thank you both. That's all very clear.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alain Gabriel with Morgan Stanley.
Thank you. Two questions from my side. Firstly, Gary, the marketing business appears to have become more capital intensive over the last 12 months, although we've also seen a very good profit uplift. How do you see the competitive landscape evolving from here onwards, given higher commodity price volatility and higher interest rates? How long do you plan to wait before revisiting your long-term EBIT targets? That's my 1st question.
The marketing business certainly is more capital intensive, and it's become really much a big boys game. You know, the initial margining, your variation margins, they're far bigger because of the, as you rightly point out, the higher flat prices that we're dealing with, the larger volatility and moves in the markets. But it's been a very strong performer for us. I guess, you know, you've seen a lot of the banks fall out of the market previously because of, well, other reasons. You've also seen some of the smaller players perhaps not being able to play in this market anymore. The marketing business is really for the big end of town. We've had a very good year this year.
We expect a another good year next year if the volatility remains. Interest rates are not a big factor in our marketing business. It's a pass-on cost that we provide that goes to our customer. That doesn't really impact our marketing business per se. Of course, it impacts general global trends and growth. If global growth is lower because of higher interest rates, that could have an impact on our business generally. It doesn't have a direct impact on our marketing business.
Thank you.
And-
Yes, sorry.
I mean, it's obviously a question that comes up frequently, and this will be our third year in a row. I think we were above even the top end of that range. I've always said I'd like to see that business again being sort of tested or being exposed to a more normal environment. We just haven't seen that both in energy and in volatility and in geopolitics for the last two or three years, all of which provides generally arbitrage opportunities. For now, when I go back to our businesses and maybe they're conservative, and I say, "What are your budgets? What are your plans going forward?" They all come back within the middle of the range.
Their performance seems to be above it, they all sort of, recall the days when this business was performing even in the lower end. It wasn't that we were at 2.2s and 2.3s and 2.4s for a while. I mean, hopefully we have rebased, that's for you guys potentially to take a call on. We're sort of still middle of the range for now.
Very good. Thanks. Steve, I have a second question for you, as I might have missed your comment in the presentation, but on working capital, are we still on mark for the $2 billion release that you have talked about for the second half of this year? What are the remaining moving parts for you to beat or miss this figure? Thanks.
You know, there are so many moving parts in the working capital that from one day to the next, which obviously commodity prices are certainly the main factor and the volatility thereof. We're now in, obviously, early stages of winter, particularly on the energy side. We've seen the sort of gyrations in, in March, April. We saw the gyrations in sort of August. These were some of the main impacts which from a standing start, you can have quite material movement. We're sitting here on December 6th. It's very hard to know exactly where this is gonna land exactly on December 31st.
It could be it certainly hasn't materially changed from where it was at June. Certainly we could see a small unwind, we could see a small increase, but we'll need to see over the next month for all that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ian Rossouw with Barclays.
Thank you very much. Just to follow up on Sylvain's question on the coal guidance. You obviously mentioned you've incorporated some of the probability and outcome factors, but just keen to understand how the Glendell life extension sort of rejection of that by the New South Wales government impacts the sort of volumes over the medium term.
I mean, you know, we look at things, Ian, as a portfolio approach. The Glendell extension was one of many different extensions and options that we have within our portfolio. It doesn't have a material impact. You know, it's, we'll keep with the whatever is ruled by the IPC. It doesn't have a material impact. Of course, in perhaps some of the shorter years or the earlier years, it may have a few million tons here or there. Remember, that extension was never gonna be big volume. We were only a 60%, 62.5% shareholder in that operation. We weren't a 100% shareholder. It wasn't a big ton producer in terms of the extension of Glendell.
Okay, thanks. Do you say, do you expect to offset that from other projects down the line? I mean, what's your thinking on some of these...
You know, in our portfolio approach. Yeah, sorry. In our portfolio approach, one can, you know, move a lot of levers and things change all the time. There's not a direct settle for that project for somewhere else. We do obviously flex production and move things within the portfolio approach, depending on the market and depending on the infrastructure constraints and depending on equipment and various other issues, whether it be weather or delights. It's not a like for like, where we'd say, "Well, we didn't get that, so we'll do something else." We do move within the portfolio.
Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Maybe just one follow-up on El Pachón . Just on the sort of glacier, I mean, there were some articles obviously over the years around some of the changes in glacier laws, and just if you could give some details on that. I mean, I know you've mentioned it's something you will de-risk over time, and that's probably something you'll address as well. But just keen to get your take on that.
Hi, and Peter here. There are a couple of factors to consider around glaciers. One is what constitutes a glacier, and there's definitions and work done both in San Juan and within Argentina with regards to glaciers, periglaciers and the like. There's an inventory, and we are actually seeing across the country, glaciers come in and out of that register depending on the science that's behind them. Number two is that we've got a very extensive resource. The drilling up the drilling over the last couple of years, that's not just confirmed the resource but extends the resource as well. There's opportunities around that. Right now, that's something that does need to be de-risked, and it's work in progress, but not something that I think that will necessarily hold the project up.
Okay. Thanks, Peter. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher LaFemina with Jefferies.
Hey, thanks guys for taking my question. Just a question on the copper market. You're kinda outlining this very bullish copper outlook for the next decade. What's perplexing, I guess, is the fact that the market, you know, Well, yeah, well, maybe it's heading into deficit, but it appears to be in deficit already, which in light of the weakness of the Chinese economy, I guess is somewhat surprising. My first question is: do you think that there's been some strategic stockpiling of copper happening in China this year? If we're talking about a market that is in deficit already when the Chinese economy has basically imploded and China might be coming back to life in 2023, does that mean that we are heading into an extremely tight scenario very soon?
Is this something that you think plays out over multiple years?
No, good question, Chris. I mean, that's the question everybody's asking. I mean, the real reason, you know, going into this year, everybody thought it'd be a massive surplus, probably a million tons, if not more, whatever it may be. Why are we so balanced? Why are stocks so low? Why are people saying the surplus is small or even a marginal deficit, as you say? I don't think it's anything other than supply shortfall. Everybody's missed their numbers. You know, you've seen our numbers here. We missed ours, but we're in good company. Everybody else, from Anglo to Southern Copper to Antofagasta to First Quantum to Freeport, you name it. Everybody's missed their production forecast. Whatever the world was expecting in terms of copper growth wasn't there, and that's what's landed up being...
leaving the copper market in such a balanced position or far less oversupplied than the world had expected. Going forward, as you say, China waking up, there's potential for continued growth in China. It's not only a Chinese growth story. As decarbonization kicks in everywhere in the world, copper's the backbone for that. We expect to see copper to be the growth story ex-China, not only internally in China. That's good on the demand side. On the supply side, you know, what happens going forward? Do the big miners continue to miss some of their production forecasts? Possibly, because times are getting tougher. Governments are being stricter in terms of licensing. Communities are asking for more. They're blockading roads.
Permitting becomes more difficult, et cetera, et cetera, we've seen it across the board. We do know there is new supply coming on. QB2 is ramping up. Quellaveco is ramping up. Kamoa is ramping up. All those tons are ramping up. We know they're coming. Everybody knows they're there. Even Mongolia will eventually ramp up a bit further. Tons are coming into the market. How those projects meet their production numbers versus the demand, that will be the test of whether, in the short term, the market is oversupplied, in a slight deficit or balanced. There's no question that longer term out, after these three projects or four projects, there's not much more on the drawing board other than the projects that we've outlined today.
That's why we're not in a rush also to bring on our projects. We wanna see how the market plays out. The next little while, as these projects come on and they deliver tons into the market, do they match the growing demand in the market? That's once the demand has outstripped that growing supply, that's the time for us to bring on our projects.
All right. All right, thank you for that. Appreciate it. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Myles Allsop with UBS.
Great. Thank you. Maybe first of all, could you talk a little bit about coal prices and why we've got such a huge difference between the Newcastle 6,000 benchmark and API2 and some of the other benchmarks? You know, what's driving that big differential in the high CV market?
Not just the high CV market, Myles. It's specific for the Newcastle spec.
Okay
... specific spec. There's a limited volume of it. It's, you know, certain boilers, certain utilities can only buy and use Newcastle spec. Some, it also is critical in blending into certain markets where certain markets perhaps need a 5-7 material and there's an abundance of 5-5 material around, but they can't take the 5-5. They have to pay premiums for a 6,000 to be able to blend down to a 5-7. You know, as Tor used to say when he ran the coal department, there's markets within markets within markets, and that's very true in the coal market today, whether you're looking at a high quality Newcastle, whether you're looking at that versus the API2 delivered into Northwest Europe, versus the 5-5 material, those sorts of things. The markets, they've really...
You've got to look at markets within markets. Newcastle itself is really the premier market where the quality is terrific and is a very sought after coal because, A, for blending, but B, because certain boilers absolutely need that material.
A relatively small market.
Yeah
... in overall percentage of the market.
Yeah. Maybe another couple of questions. It'd be great to get a sense as to how big you think the recycling business could be in, you know, five years, 10 years, say by 2030 in terms of EBITDA. Then a question for Steve on free cash flow, the $15 billion of free cash flow spot. Should we work on the assumption that all of that returns to shareholders, and should we be thinking dividends over buybacks given where the share price is, and, you know, what about M&A? How does that squeeze into it?
How big could the recycling business be? You know, we're not sitting here and saying it's gonna be X or Y times bigger than it is. Today, it's already a significant business. I mean, on an EBITDA basis, we probably are $200 million-$250 million already, perhaps even more. And it's some work internally where we'll be stripping that out a bit more in future to maybe show some of those numbers. Where you can see that the recycling business growth will be exponential is simply two points. Number one is the world needs the metal, and the metal is not there, and it will not be there from traditional sources. That is clear, the numbers are clear, the studies are clear. Everybody can see it.
If you don't have recycling, you're not going to have enough metal to feed the world economy. The second part about it goes to the earlier question around ability to develop projects in ESG. The world will demand a circular economy. The world will demand that we recycle minerals and metals. We can't just run around the world digging holes in the world and only providing primary metal. We need the circular economy, and we need to recycle. We have a terrific business that's been doing this for many years. We have the infrastructure, the networks, the partnerships, the relationships. Will it be bigger than it is today? Absolutely. Will it be multiple times bigger than it is today? Absolutely. How much bigger? Phew. That's very difficult to say, Myles. I mean, there's certainly a lot of potential for this business.
Okay.
Myles, I think it was your question that you might have asked earlier on, you posed a number and said, "Does that all come back to shareholders subject to plus, minus as a working capital?" Yes, it does all wonder. It's a pretty clear, straightforward allocation across cash generation. Then there's a base cash distribution, which we know which will be 25%. I mean, this is the 2023 cash flow that we're talking about.
Yeah
It'll be relevant in 2024 or halfway through 2023 as we generate some of it into the first half 2023. There'll be a base cash amount in February in respect of this year's cash flows, which will be a material amount and a material step up, clearly, than where we were in 2022. At the moment, we've shown you've seen our allocation back in August, where we had some top-up amounts, which was favored, I think two-thirds or so at the time, buyback over cash. We were happy to afford. Prices have stepped up a bit. We're still buying. We're still happy to be buying at these sort of levels.
At some level, I don't know where that level is, we may pivot to more cash over buyback and let investors make their decisions on cyclical calls as opposed to some other valuation anomalies, assumptions, discounts, and sort of, and the likes that we would otherwise sort of consider. Historically, we've said we favor cash over buybacks. There's sort of tax issues across the two that we would obviously consider as we work our way through. But at the moment, we're still in a favoring buyback over cash proposition for the surplus capital, but it's all gonna come back.
On the M&A side Gary talked about earlier, are we thinking these are? It sounds like they're very specific kind of opportunities. Are they relatively small? Are they kind of quite close to fruition, or is this something that's kind of more of a conceptual kind of stage?
No, I mean, you know, we can't comment too much on M&A opportunities, but these are not pie-in-the-sky things that we dream up. These are real opportunities that, if you know, the opportunity arises, we would execute on.
Relatively small or?
It depends on the business. I mean, we don't wanna speculate and get the hairs running on things that perhaps may not turn out or not real. Certainly, Steve won't be sweating over being able to fund anything.
Okay. Thank you.
Anything's gotta compete with the buyback, of course. That's the benchmark and at least a hurdle rate from which everything would need to co-compete and justify its position.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Danielle Chigumira with Credit Suisse.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple from my side. Firstly, thinking about the marketing business, you've already mentioned that it's more capital intensive and demurred to comment on potentially how much higher you'll perform than the long-term guidance. Could you come back to that RMI number? Historically, you've talked about the $20 billion ceiling. Obviously, we're above that. How much higher above that do you think we could stay in the current market environment? That's the first question.
Thanks, Danielle. I think we're about $24 billion or so at the moment in the current price environment, or the prices as where we were in June. The $20 billion ceiling has been somewhat superseded. We're sort of the net debt cap now is a number and just being mindful that RMI cannot expand in some uncontrollable fashion that it would otherwise not be considered as too high at some point. We need to be cautious as to what is a sensible amount of RMI. $24 billion is the amount that's deployed today. It is working well within the business. You can see the returns that are clearly being generated there. We're in an energy world as well.
It's not inconceivable that prices could move materially higher. Just price effect, you could see that RMI move higher. If we sit where we are at the moment, I think $24 billion is probably reasonable cruising speed for now. We're not sitting with excessive inventories that are deployed in contango structures. There's very little inventory you're being paid to carry today. It's all working within a normal cycle of procuring, shipping, holding, and ultimately selling and sort of distributing. I would say volume-wise, we're not holding excessive inventories by any means, and the pricing today reflects. We've expanded business lines. That's also something relative to three, four, five years ago, where we're bigger in iron ore, we're bigger in the energy spectrum, if you think about gas, LNG.
cobalt's obviously a bigger market today, in which we participate. We have expanded the depth and breadth of the business, and $24 billion in today's price environment is I would say, normal.
Thanks. That's very useful. Just to clarify, you wouldn't think about a reasonable RMI number as restricting you from being able to take advantage of the opportunities you see from the marketing side?
We have no constraints today to opportunities and have never, frankly, had marketing constraints for business that makes sense and generates good returns within that particular business. It's working capital intensive as opposed to classic equity capital intensive. The fact that we ourselves have repositioned the business so strongly in a more comfortable, lower leverage, stronger balance sheet position is also something that even affords us greater flexibility. Cost of capital, cost of financing advantage is also relative to peers. We're not constraining the business. We're not targeting areas of RMI. If the business comes with opportunities as they seek every day and sort of transacts, then it's all facilitated at the moment.
There's no discussions within the business to say, we need to step it up or there's something we're not otherwise doing today, that we're missing a trick or anything.
Thank you. That's very useful. Changing track slightly. On coal, you mentioned some of the factors around the guidance downgrades were temporary, but you've got flat to 110 million tons out to 2025. Why doesn't that allow you to increase the targeted reduction for emissions for 2026 or 15%?
Our 15% reduction was off our 2019 base year, which was, if I remember correctly, just under 140 million tons. That's the base year that we're reducing. If you, if you do the math of that's about, what? 20 million tons of, about 20 million tons of that. 15% is about 20 million tons of that. We're already below the 15% of current numbers, and we believe we'll meet that by 2026. Remember we said a 15% is a minimum for us by 2026. We may in fact exceed that, but that's where our base year is set, and that's how we're planning to responsibly run down that coal business.
Thanks. Maybe I wasn't clear. Absent today's guidance, one would have assumed that you'd be around the 120 million ton level in 2026. Currently, you'll be around 110 million tons. That means that you've just got more scope to beat the 15% targeted reduction. Is that a fair take on it?
That's a fair assumption. Yeah.
Okay.
Good summary.
Great. Thanks. Finally for me, just on fatalities. It is an area in which still perform worse than your large peers. Could you give us an idea as to why? Is there an issue converting lessons from HPI or HPIs not being recorded? How should we think about the dynamics there?
I'm happy to talk to that, Gary, if that's okay. There's a tremendous amount of work going on. If we look at where the fatalities are happening, they tend to be in areas that historically have been less mature, large businesses, with large number of employees. It requires us training management and employees at the same time and taking them through what is quite a complex journey. Whether this year we look at the fact that we've had a couple of incidents in Kazakhstan that were extremely disappointing. We have special campaigns, and I mentioned earlier on that certain assets get special focus.
We have tremendous efforts going on there in terms of leadership development, understanding the risk associated with all the tasks, putting in the procedures for that, and taking people through the necessary work so that they can avoid these incidents in the future. I think it's quite pertinent that you did ask around HPRI reporting. We've seen very good reporting out of that region. I think that's a good first step for our businesses, realizing what the hazards are and what's going wrong, and allowing us to get some early lessons and perhaps learn from those before something happens to a person that we don't want to happen. We are working on those geographies and we will improve them and we will get to zero.
I think maybe just to add to that, when you compare us to some of our peers, I mean, you're comparing in many cases to companies that operate in Canada and Australia and big open-pit mines. We operate in 35 countries around the world. We operate in underground mines. We're in, we're in places like Kazakhstan, we're in Peru, we're in Colombia, we're in, you know, sort of some. We're in the DRC. We're in some difficult countries, and we don't shy away from our safety obligation. In fact, we bring world's best practice, world's best standards, and we're on a continual improvement drive. Clearly, we're not there yet, but it's not a fair comparison to say against some of our peers. I mean, it's quite easy to sell some of those very difficult assets and say, we have no fatalities.
That's not our nature. We won't sell our fatalities. We won't sell our safety. We will ensure that we continue to double down on our efforts, on our processes, on our systems and our controls to keep our people safe wherever they are in the world. That is where we bring value to our business beyond just everyday mining.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Broda with RBC Capital Markets.
Great, thanks for taking my question. You kinda touched on it a few times already. I've just in terms of the marketing business, there's a big differentiator for Glencore. Obviously, you're saying that we've seen a big change in the overall structure of it. Is that something that can potentially be as we get to a more commodity intensive world with these new constraints, I mean, is it something that could become a structural growth area for Glencore as well? Just secondly, on the copper growth, obviously the whole industry is struggling already with having enough skilled labor.
How do you feel about Glencore's current ability to be able to develop these projects or multiple projects the at the same time? Is there a risk by waiting that it becomes a bit procyclical, it'll be even harder at that point? Thanks very much.
Okay. On the marketing business and, I mean, growth or structural growth in the marketing business, I mean, you know, as the world grows, you know, and there's more volumes, we can continue growing in the marketing business within the commodities that we continue to produce and market. You know, with the kind of copper the world's going to need or the cobalt it's going to need with all the commodities it's going to need, the ability, you know, for structural growth in our marketing business is there.
Recycling is a growth engine there.
Exactly. There's a few growth engines within our marketing business. Recycling is one which adds significant volume in the flow, both in the sourcing of black mass and e-waste, as well as the actual product and the marketing of those products. You've seen some of the offtake arrangements and marketing arrangements we've announced recently around our recycling business. Other areas associated with our existing business that we continue to grow in. For example, we don't produce lithium, and we have no ambitions to produce lithium, but we do get lithium through our recycling business.
All of a sudden, we set up a small lithium trading desk with two or three guys because we do have a base of lithium that comes through the business, and we'll be able to structurally grow that business on a very low risk base without investing in industrial assets. There's a potential for growth. The other area for growth is areas around energy. The non-conventional energy other than, say, oil, gas, and the likes. We're now growing our carbon desk and our power desk. These are desks that are closely associated with our existing energy desks and have potential to grow and will grow, particularly the carbon side, substantially as the world seeks carbon solutions. The ability to continue growing our marketing business is certainly there. On the copper growth side and skills, yes, skills are challenged.
We see skills challenged around the world. That part of de-risking our projects is ensuring that we bring on the right talent, the right skills. As we said, we are de-risking these projects, and we won't be going ahead with projects unless we adequately skill within Glencore.
That's great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Hatch with Berenberg.
Thanks very much, and much appreciated. Just a couple of smaller questions. Firstly, just on zinc. Is the reduction in your guidance on zinc coming down to Zhairem and some of the other conservatism that you kinda talked around about dialing back some of the coal business? Just asking a little bit about what's going on with that zinc number. Gary, you talked a lot about, you know, the market wanting to be hungry for copper before you bring it on. You know, what kind of price level are we kinda talking, what kind of volume deficits are you thinking about to really see the market be encouraged to bring on long-term mine supply? Thank you.
Yeah, Richard, look, I mean, certainly at current levels, we're not bringing on copper. At $8,400 copper, you know, we don't see a need to bring more copper onto this market. You know, we need to see substantially higher prices, number one, and number two, we also need to be feeding a growing demand. We don't want to, you know, bring copper into a high-priced market and the result of the copper that we bring on or the tons that we bring on, market prices fall. It's a carefully balanced game of ensuring that we feed the demand without impacting pricing.
That's part of what we do, and that's the benefit that we have through our marketing business and our network of information that we have around the world, that we ensure that we bring these projects on at the right time and to the right market at the right speed.
Yeah, Rich, I mean, in terms of the zinc production guidance in the profile 2023-2025, it's not the coal, it's not the bulk sort of movable country operations that we have in coal. It's asset by asset specific on the zinc side. We do see the ramp up of Zhairem in Kazakhstan, particularly coming through H2 next year and then reaching steady state from 2024. That holds a higher level. You do have some offsets, particularly in 2024. Antamina, out of South America, goes through a low zinc grade period, ultimately recovers that, but 2024 is constrained by Antamina. In 2025, we do see some end of lives in some smaller zinc operations that we have as well.
We've got the last of our Canadian mines has Kidd Mine there. It's currently scheduled around that 2024, 2025. Lady Loretta in Australia is also a satellite operation of the big Mount Isa operation. It's been producing for a while, but it also reaches end of life towards the end of 2024, and you see some tons tail off in 2025.
Cool. Thanks, guys. Much appreciated. Cheers.
Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Bob Brackett with Bernstein.
Good morning. If I tie the comments around M&A opportunities, especially nickel and aluminum, both of which can be fairly emissions intensive, to your emissions target of, say, 317 million tons by 2026, does that emissions target preclude high emission M&A, or would you grow into that, or how should I think about that?
It's certainly, Bob, considered in any M&A activity that we do, and certainly it doesn't change our commitment under our Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 targets of 15% by 2026 and 50% by 2035. It is a big consideration in M&A.
Very good. Thank you.
Thank you. With that, I'll now hand the call back over to CEO, Gary Nagle, for any closing remarks.
I just wanna thank everybody for dialing in for the call and for the Q&A. As always, we're available after the call at other times to answer any further questions you have. Otherwise, thanks very much and have a good afternoon.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call and webcast. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.