London

GLENCORE plc's aggressive approach to shrinking the indus-try's biggest debt pile is fuelling optimism the trader and miner can retain its investment-grade credit rating amid the worst commodities rout in seven years.

To head off concern that an existing US$10 billion debt-reduction plan wasn't cutting deep enough, the company last week said that it's targeting net debt of as low as US$18 billion by the end of 2016, down from US$30 billion in June. Credit-default swaps insuring Glencore's debt for five years fell the past three days.