Bloomberg Even for commodities deal king Ivan Glasenberg, it’s been a busy week. Glencore Plc announced two acquisitions potentially worth as much as $2 billion within days of each other. One to capture a stake in Chevron Corp.’s oil refining and fuel service stations in South Africa and Botswana, the other to take a bigger stake in Latin America’s top …

Tokyo / Emirates Business The cost of battery storage for stationary applications could fall by up to 66 percent by 2030, according to a new report published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The falling price of batteries could stimulate 17-fold growth of installed battery storage, opening up a number of new commercial and economic opportunities, the report highlights. …

Bloomberg Not every oilman is gaining from the US shale boom. Just ask Joe Warren. Warren, a partner at Brown & Borelli Inc., is caught in a historical hiccup, of sorts. More than a third of the 65 to 70 old-line vertical wells his company operates in Oklahoma are negatively affected by horizontal drilling, he says. The new-style wells can …

Bloomberg A bungled transition from coal to clean energy has left resource-rich Australia with an unwanted crown: the highest power prices in the world. New Yorkers pay half as much as Sydneysiders to keep the lights on, despite Australia boasting among the world’s largest coal and natural gas reserves, as well as ideal conditions for clean power generation. A decade …

Bloomberg Sydneysiders are cashing out of their million-dollar homes in favour of cheaper houses in the tropical north, says Macquarie Bank Ltd. The emerging exodus is part of Australia’s latest wave of interstate migration to Queensland, where house prices are half Sydney’s and job creation is on the rise. When similar factors were at play in the mid-1980s and mid-2000s, …

Bloomberg Chocolate lovers in Asia are taking a big bite out of the global cocoa glut. From India to China, where demand is growing faster than in major markets like Europe or the US, consumers are eating more chocolate. At the same time, big growers in West Africa are harvesting smaller crops. Top processors Cargill Inc. and Barry Callebaut AG …

Bloomberg Pay for Japanese workers showed the strongest gains this year in August, according to data from the labour ministry. It’s welcome news for economic policy makers in Tokyo who are struggling to spur sustained inflation in the world’s third-largest economy. Monthly cash earnings increased 0.9 percent from a year earlier, the largest amount in more than a year, and …

Bloomberg India has the potential to boost consumption of everything from copper to iron ore as its economy expands over the next two decades and more people flock to its cities, according to projections from the Australian government that try to fathom whether the country will emulate China. “Like China since the start of this century, India is in the …

Bloomberg Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. are putting the finishing touches on a merger that’s likely to be announced when the wireless carriers report quarterly earnings at the end of October, according to people familiar with the matter. Both sides are conducting final due diligence to decide on the exchange ratio that will determine Sprint’s valuation, said the people, …

Bloomberg Tropical Storm Nate was heading inland over the southern US states of Mississippi and Alabama after the National Hurricane Center downgraded it from a Category 1 hurricane, the latest in an unusually ferocious storm season that’s racked up billions in damages. With top winds of 70 miles per hour, Nate was moving north-northeast at 23 mph, the hurricane centre …