Mining giant Glencore Xstrata raised its copper production by 18 percent in the first three months of 2012 from output in the same period a year ago, it said on Monday.
In a quarterly output report, the new-born industry behemoth said that its produced 321,000 tonnes of copper from January to March.
Swiss-based Glencore Xstrata said that the growth was driven by increased production at its mines in Peru's Antapaccay, as well as Mount Margaret in Australia, and in Katanga and Mutanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In Africa alone, copper output increased by 44 percent.
Glencore Xstrata noted that capacity at the Katanga and Mutunda mines was being expanded this year to give them an annual output of 270,000 tonnes and 200,000 tonnes.
In its energy sector, Glencore Xstrata's performance was modest, with coal production increasing by 1.0 percent to 32.7 million tonnes.
Oil production, meanwhile, rose by 2.0 percent to close to 5.4 million barrels.
Glencore Xstrata said that in its trading arm, metals and minerals had delivered "solid results" during the quarter despite dipping prices, while coal and oil saw "markedly improved profitability".
Its agricultural products business made a "slow start" to 2013, it said, underlining that the first quarter is often weaker than other times of the year.
Glencore Xstrata was created formally at the beginning of this month via a merger between commodities trader Glencore International (Other OTC: GLCNF - news) and mining heavyweight Xstrata (Other OTC: XSRAF - news) .
Chinese regulators had been the last to give their approval, and the merger was put on ice for several months pending their decision.
One of the conditions of China's green light was that Glencore Xstrata would sells its interest in the Las Bambas copper mine project in Peru to Chinese-approved players by the end of September 2014.
In a separate statement on Monday, Glencore Xstrata said that it had pulled the plug on a coal terminal project in Australia -- which had been planned by Xstrata.
Glencore was founded in 1974 as Marc Rich + Co AG.
It started out with a focus on ferrous and non-ferrous metals, minerals and crude oil, before expanding into oil products shortly thereafter.
The roots of Xstrata, meanwhile, lie in Swiss infrastructure company Sudelektra AG, founded in 1926.
The company was renamed Xstrata AG in 1999.
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