India has set in motion the biggest ever auction of coal mines in the country.

TES’s multi-million-dollar facility has the capacity to recycle up to 14 tonnes or the equivalent of 280,000 lithium-ion smartphone batteries a day.

Police opened fire to beat back the protesters in the southern seaside town of Thoothukudi where 13 people were killed, causing national outrage and the subsequent closure of the Sterlite Copper plant.

The smelter will have an input capacity of 2.4 million tonnes of copper concentrate and an output capacity of 600,000 tonnes.

The global zinc market was oversupplied by 11,700 tonnes in January after a revised surplus of 23,500 tonnes in December.

Heavy rains and the worst floods in 50 years have shut the world’s largest coal-export harbour.

Soaring shipping costs, booming demand and tight supplies of primary and scrap aluminium are likely to fuel further price rises for the metal.