Glencore Plc is set to report another year of bumper profits from its trading business as the commodities giant joins rivals cashing in on soaring prices…The company also reported that it had produced 1,100 tons of cobalt from its Mutanda copper and cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Glencore is processing metal stockpiles as it preparing to reopen the mine -- one of the biggest producers of battery metal cobalt, which was closed in late 2019 after prices crashed.

Tesla Inc.’s Model 3 rocketed to the No. 2 spot in European car sales last month, narrowly beaten only by Volkswagen AG’s perennially popular Golf…The U.S. carmaker’s most-affordable vehicle leads all purely battery-powered autos through June with 66,350 units sold, according to Jato Dynamics, a research firm…Generous incentives are enticing consumers to trade in combustion-engine cars, with battery and plug-in hybrid models more than doubling their market share last month to 19%. Tesla shipped 25,697 Model 3s to customers, up from a monthly average of just over 11,000 cars for the year…The Model 3 came out on top despite an aggressive push by incumbent carmakers to expand their lineups of electric models. Volkswagen AG, Europe’s biggest automaker, has set a goal to eclipse Tesla in worldwide EV sales by 2025.

Mining major Hindustan Zinc Ltd will be investing about USD 1 billion to replace diesel-run vehicles and equipment with battery electric vehicles across its eight mines in the next five years, company CEO Arun Misra said on Friday…The company, which has signed an agreement with Finnish technology firm Normet Group Oy to introduce front line battery-powered service equipment in underground mining, will deploy three of Normet SmartDrive EVs – a 'Spraymec', an 'Agitator', and a 'Charmec' - in their underground mines, in the first phase.

Diversified miner BHP on Friday reported that it would build two solar farms and a battery storage system to help power the Mt Keith and Leinster nickel operations…The Northern Goldfields solar project would include a 27.4 MW solar farm at Mt Keith and a 10.7 MW solar farm and 10.1 MW battery at Leinster, and would displace power currently supplied by diesel and gas turbine generation…BHP commissioned the solar farms and battery to be built, owned and operated by TransAlta as part of the power purchase agreement extension signed in October 2020. Construction would start the second quarter of 2022, and would take between 12 to 14 months to complete… “This announcement follows the nickel supply agreement we signed with Tesla last week. Sustainable low carbon nickel is essential for our battery and electric vehicle customers.”