Billionaire's Battered Miner May Face Investor, Political Unrest

A troubled 2018 so far for billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd. may get worse amid concern that its key copper smelter in southern India could remain shut until 2019, further pressuring a stock that’s down 25 percent since the start of the year. After being hit earlier in the year by an iron ore mining ban and a steel acquisition roadblock, Vedanta, India’s biggest aluminum producer, has also warned it may be forced to reduce output of the metal. The copper smelter may not restart for at least 12 months and the closure may shave about $200 million-$250 million from pre-tax earnings, said Vishal Kulkarni, a Singapore-based analyst at S&P Global Ratings.