Vedanta resumes operations at Karnataka iron ore mine

REUTERS - 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. 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. 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. (Reporting by Richa Naidu in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)