Photo to add: Strait of Hormuz from space (NASA MODIS). Commons page

vizmaya desk · 20 October 2026

Project Vault's first copper: 12% of one Congo promise

A trading house says it put 12,000 tonnes of copper into America's new reserve. The plan is for 100,000.

  • 15 OCTMercuria says its first 12,000 tonnes of Congo copper went into the vault.
  • 2 OCTGlencore says its trading arm will earn over $5bn this year.
  • 23 SEPGlencore and Mercuria become the first two firms in the vault, $500m each.

The story in four numbers

A war paid the middlemen. Now one is stocking a spare.

$4.1bn

Trafigura's profit in six months. All of last year was $2.7bn.

Oct 2025 to Mar 2026 · Trafigura half-year report
$3.3bn

Glencore's trading profit in the first half of 2026.

H1 2026 · Glencore half-year report
25%

of normal oil-product flow still leaves the Gulf.

Sep 2026 · Bloomberg, Vitol's CEO, Vortexa
12%

of the promised copper has reached the vault.

15 Oct 2026 · Mercuria, via Reuters

Sources are linked on the last slide. Each figure is explained in the slides that follow.

First, the basics

What does a trading house actually do?

It buys oil, metal or grain where there is plenty. It ships it, stores it and pays for it, so a factory far away gets what it needs.

It earns a small cut for the service. The big money comes when something breaks and goods get hard to move.

Chart 1 · The shape

When the world breaks, they get paid

Trafigura is one of the biggest. It made $4.1bn in the six months to March 2026. Its whole last financial year came to $2.7bn.

The Strait of Hormuz has been largely shut since 28 February 2026, so these six months hold only its first month.

FY22 and FY23 are as first reported. Source: Trafigura half-year report 2026 and annual reports 2019 to 2025.

Trafigura net profit, US$ billion

Photo to add: Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz at night, from the ISS. Commons page

Chart 3 · The stress point

A narrow sea went quiet

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been largely blocked since the war began. In September about 1 million barrels a day of oil products got through, against about 4 million before.

Source: Bloomberg, 10 Sep 2026, citing Vitol's CEO and Vortexa tanker data.

Photo to add: a very large crude carrier at sea. Commons page

The second squeeze

$1m+

a day to hire a supertanker from the Gulf to China in September 2026. That is a record.

Source: Yahoo Finance / Oilprice, Bloomberg, 21 Sep 2026.

Chart 2 · The split

Two firms carry about half of one country's oil exports

In August, Vitol and Trafigura moved about 597,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude. The country sent out 1.17 million. That is 51%.

They now ask for bigger discounts, because shipping costs so much. When a few firms are the pipe, their costs become the country's problem.

Source: Reuters via Kitco, 22 Sep 2026. The last sentence is our reading.

Venezuela oil exports, Aug 2026

The same pattern, one firm, 17 years

Six months of trading beat Glencore's old yearly average

Glencore mines metals and also trades them. Its trading arm made $3.3bn of profit before interest and tax in the first half of 2026, up 142%.

Its old long-term range was $2.3bn to $3.5bn a year. The middle of that is $2.9bn.

Source: Glencore 2026 half-year report, 2025 annual report, 2025 half-year presentation.

Glencore trading profit, US$ billion

Glencore's own forecast

Even Glencore says the boom will cool

>$5bn

expected for 2026, as Glencore said on 2 October

~$3.5bn

a year from 2027, in its new method (range $2.8bn to $4.2bn)

GuidanceThese are Glencore's forecasts, not results. The new method links profit to how much stock it holds and what money costs, about 5%.

Our readWar profits are not the normal. That sets up the next job.

Source: Glencore announcement, 2 Oct 2026.

The new job

Governments now want a spare

In February 2026 the US backed Project Vault. It is a stockpile of critical minerals, backed by up to $10bn of government loans.

Factories can draw from it if supply is cut. Trading houses find the metal, ship it and finance it.

Private money in the vault is reported as both $2bn and $1.67bn, so we leave it out. Source: CSIS, Fastmarkets.

Project Vault, 2026

Photo to add: copper and cobalt mining in Katanga, DR Congo (a general view, not the mine behind this copper). Commons page

The promise

100,000 t

of copper that Gécamines, Congo's state miner, said in January it would ship to the US in 2026.

It comes from Gécamines' 20% share of one mine, with Mercuria's help to finance and move it.

Source: Creamer Media, 12 Jan 2026; Reuters via Kitco.

The hero finding

The first delivery: 12% of the promise

Stated by MercuriaOn 15 October, Mercuria's head of metals said 12,000 tonnes of Congo copper went into the vault that week.

12,000 out of 100,000 is 12%. Only Mercuria has said the copper arrived. We found no outside check.

Source: Reuters via Kitco, 15 Oct 2026, FT summit remarks.

Congo copper for the vault, tonnes

The choke point lens

Four places this vault can be stopped

One seller

The 100,000 t rests on one Congo state miner and its 20% share of one mine.

One lender

Up to $10bn of loans from one US agency. The two traders put in $1bn.

Thin rules

Two market sources told Fastmarkets the pricing plan is unclear.

Few pipes

Glencore and Mercuria are the first two named. Hartree and Traxys were named earlier as sourcing partners.

Our readEach thread is a place one decision can stop the flow. That is a reading of the facts, not a forecast.

Sources: Fastmarkets, CSIS, Creamer Media.

Risks and counter-case

Why this may matter less than it looks

  • Others can step in. At least four trading houses are named in the vault's sourcing, so no single one is a lock.
  • It is small so far. $1bn of trader money. 12,000 tonnes delivered. Not much more is public.
  • Profits swing. Glencore's own long-run guess is about $3.5bn a year, not $5bn.

Sources: Glencore, CSIS.

What to watch next

Four dates and numbers to check

Early Dec 2026 (expected)

Trafigura's results for the year to 30 September. Last year's came on 9 December.

31 Dec 2026

Does Congo copper reach 100,000 tonnes? 12,000 so far.

Any week

Oil products through Hormuz. About 1 million barrels a day now, about 4 million before the war.

Early 2027 (expected)

Glencore's full-year trading profit against its over $5bn guide.

Sources and claims log · vizmaya desk · 20 Oct 2026

What we checked, and what we could not

25 claims logged17 verified2 contested6 unverified, kept off the page

Contested: the size of private money in the vault ($2bn vs $1.67bn), and Vitol's 2025 profit ($4.2bn vs $4.5bn). Not found: CFTC position data, which mine the copper came from, and written vault rules. Photo credits go under each image.