Glencore has offered to sell take-over target Xstrata's German smelter after EU antitrust regulators said its earlier offer to scrap a key zinc sales deal was not sufficient, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. "Glencore is offering Nordenham in addition to Nyrstar," one of the sources said. The zinc smelter in northern Germany produced 148,000 tonnes of zinc last year.
Commodities trader Glencore last month proposed to the European Commission that it scrap its zinc sales deal with world No 1 zinc producer Nyrstar, a person with knowledge of the matter had told Reuters. The offer would free up 350,000 tonnes, 16 percent of Europe's zinc market, cutting the combined entity's 50 percent share to below 40 percent, a level which typically triggers regulatory worries about market dominance. The European Commission generally prefers asset sales to assuage competition concerns.