SPOTLIGHT: Glencore-Xstrata says coal, copper marketing will highlight merger's benefits

His comments, and those of his counterpart at Xstrata, Mick Davis, are the first firm indications of how the combined producer-marketer powerhouse will operate in practice, after years of speculation surrounding the potential benefits to be had by such a merger. Some analysts remain dubious, however, viewing the projected figure of $500 million in immediate marketing gains with scepticism, and warn that such benefits are always hard to quantify. But for Glasenberg, the synergies are transparent and straightforward, and can readily be seen in the coal and copper concentrates markets, as he explained this week. “Now we get the full flow of the Xstrata tonnes into the system. That allows us to find price arbitrages that exist. We're in the bulk commodity sector [...] where commodities price at different prices in different parts of the world at different times. We can now take full advantage of that with the Glencore [and Xstrata]...