Vedanta resumes operations at Karnataka mine

Vedanta Resources Plc , a London-based mining conglomerate that has most of its assets in India, said it had resumed mining iron ore in Karnataka on Monday following clearance from a court-appointed panel.

London-listed Vedanta's shares rose as much as 2.8 percent after the miner said its Sesa Sterlite unit had been given the go-ahead by a committee appointed by the Supreme Court to restart operations at its mines in Karnataka, under certain conditions.

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Vedanta, controlled by metals tycoon Anil Agarwal, has been hurt by the ban on iron ore mining in Karnataka and Goa over the last few quarters.

India was the world's third-largest exporter of iron ore, shipping out ore worth more than $7 billion per year before the mining restrictions slashed the country's output and exports.

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Iron ore production in Karnataka is expected to rise to 22.18 million tonnes in the year ending March 2015, according to a state government petition with the country's top court seeking to relax an annual mining cap of 30 million tonnes.

Sesa Sterlite, formerly called Sesa Goa, is India's top private-sector mining company.

Reuters