Glencore Xstrata lifts African copper production Glencore Xstrata raised copper production by a fifth in the first six months of the year amid a surge in output from African sources of the industrial metal. The recently merged commodities trader and miner managed to increase African output of the metal 42 per cent to 171,000 tonnes. However, outages and reduced recovery at other key mines in Chile and Peru held back overall growth in copper production to 20 per cent at 673,000 tonnes for the interim period to June 30. The surge in output has coincided with a weakening of demand that has seen the price of copper futures fall about a tenth since the beginning of the year. The company last month formally put its Las Bambas copper mining project up for sale, with analysts estimating it could command a price of $4bn-$5bn. Glencore Xstrata agreed to sell the project to assuage Chinese concerns over its potential pricing power over the commodity following the $64bn takeover. Gold production across the company's portfolio of assets rose 14 per cent, while coal production increased a modest 4 per cent to 68m tonnes. Output was trimmed by strike action in Colombia and the abandonment of expansion projects amid softer coal prices. Zinc and lead production both fell modestly year on year as growing output from some mines was outweighed by declines at others. The release of the production update on Wednesday came ahead of Glencore Xstrata reporting its first set of interim results as a combined entity next Tuesday. Shares edged up by slightly less than 1 per cent to 309.85p on Wednesday.