Vedanta Resources

Vedanta Resources plc

Type	Public limited company
Traded as	LSE: VED
Industry	Mining and Resources
Founded	1976, Bombay, India
Founder(s)	Anil Agarwal
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Anil Agarwal (Executive Chairman)
Products	Copper, aluminium, zinc, lead, gold, iron ore, pig iron and metallurgical coke
Revenue	US$ 11.42 billion (2011)
Operating income	US$ 2.53 billion (2011)
Profit	US$ 598 million (2011)
Total assets	US$ 28.89 billion (2011)
Total equity	US$ 13.67 billion (2011)
Employees	31,171 (2011)
Subsidiaries	Sterlite Industries Bharat Aluminium Company Hindustan Zinc Limited Sesa Goa MALCO Vedanta Aluminium Sterlite Energy Australian Copper Mines Konkola Copper Mines
Website	Vedantaresources.com

Vedanta Resources plc (LSE: VED) is a global mining and metals company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest mining and non-ferrous metals company in India and also has mining operations in Australia and Zambia. Its main products are copper, zinc, aluminium, lead and iron ore. It is also developing commercial power stations in India in Orissa (2,400 MW) and Punjab (1,980 MW).

It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

History

The company was founded by Anil Agarwal in Mumbai in 1976. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2003 when it raised $876 million through an Initial Public Offering. Meanwhile in 2006 it acquired Sterlite Gold, a gold mining business. It raised an additional $2bn through an ADR issue in 2007. In 2008 it bought certain of the assets of Asarco, a copper mining business, out of Chapter 11 for $2.6bn. In December 2011 it also completed the US$8.67 billion acquisition of Cairn's Indian unit heralding its foray in the oil sector.

Operations

Copper

Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd.: Sterlite is registered office headquartered in Tuticorin, India. Sterlite has been a public listed company in India since 1988, and its equity shares are listed and traded on the NSE and the BSE, and are also listed and traded on the NYSE in the form of ADSs. Vedanta owns 53.9% of Sterlite and have management control of the company.

Konkola Copper Mines: Vedanta own 79.4% of KCM’s share capital and have management control of the company. KCM’s other shareholder is ZCCM Investment Holdings Plc. The Government of Zambia has a controlling stake in ZCCM Investment Holdings Plc.

Copper Mines of Tasmania Pty Ltd.: CMT is headquartered in Queenstown, Tasmania. Sterlite owns 100.0% of CMT and has management control of the company.

Zinc

Hindustan Zinc Limited: HZL is headquartered in Udaipur in the State of Rajasthan. HZL’s equity shares are listed and traded on the NSE and BSE. Sterlite owns 64.9% of the share capital in HZL and has management control. Sterlite has a call option to acquire the Government of India’s remaining ownership interest.

Aluminium

Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd.: BALCO is headquartered at Korba in the State of Chhattisgarh. Sterlite owns 51.0% of the share capital of BALCO and has management control of the company. The Government of India owns the remaining 49.0%. Sterlite exercised an option to acquire the Government of India’s remaining ownership interest in BALCO in March 2004.

Vedanta Aluminium Ltd.: Vedanta Aluminium is headquartered in Jharsuguda, State of Orissa. Vedanta owns 70.5% of the share capital of Vedanta Aluminium and Sterlite owns the remaining 29.5% share capital of Vedanta Aluminium. Vedanta Aluminium produces ingots, billets & wire rods that are sold in the markets around the World.

Madras Aluminium Company Ltd.: MALCO is headquartered in Mettur, India. MALCO’s equity shares are listed and traded on the NSE and BSE. They own 93.9% of MALCO’s share capital and have management control of the company.

Iron ore

Sesa Goa Limited: Sesa Goa is headquartered in Panaji, India, and its equity shares are listed and traded on the NSE and BSE. Vedanta owns 57.1% of Sesa and have management control of the company.

Commercial power generation business

Sterlite Energy Limited: Sterlite Energy is headquartered in Mumbai. Sterlite owns 100.0% of Sterlite Energy and has management control of the company.

Criticism

Environmental damage

Vedanta has been criticised by human rights and activist groups, including Survival International and Amnesty International, due to their operations in Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa, India that are said to threaten the lives of the Dongria Kondh that populate this region. The Niyamgiri hills are also claimed to be an important wildlife habitat in Eastern Ghats of India as per a report by the Wildlife Institute of India as well as independent reports/studies carried out by civil society groups. In January 2009, thousands of locals formed a human chain around the hill in protest at the plans to start bauxite mining in the area. The Union Environment Ministry in August 2010 rejected earlier clearances granted to a joint venture led by the Vedanta Group company Sterlite Industries for mining bauxite from Niyamgiri hills.

Vedanta's Alumina Refinery in Lanjigarh was critiqued by the Orissa State Pollution Control Board (the statutory environmental regulation body) for air pollution and water pollution in the area. According to Amnesty International, local people reported dust from the plant settling on clothes, crops and food. An environmental impact assessment by the government found dust pollution was within acceptable limits.^{[citation needed]} Vedanta officials claimed there was no dust pollution from the plant at all. An environmental inspection of the plant reported water pollution by the plant including increasing the pH value of the river Vamshadhara below the refinery and a high level of SPM in the stack emissions.

In October 2009 it was reported that the British Government has criticised Vedanta for its treatment of the Dongria Kondh tribe in Orissa, India. The company refused to co-operate with the British Government and with an OECD investigation. They have rejected charges of environmental damage, saying it may be related to the increased use of fertiliser by farmers.

Safety concerns

2007 Mining Deaths

Unsafe mining operations led to 1,246 injuries and 26 deaths involving own employees and contractors.

Balco, Korba, Chhattisgarh

A chimney under construction by Gannon Dunkerley & Company at the Balco smelter in Korba, Chhattisgarh collapsed on 23 September 2009 killing at least 40 workers. Balco and GDCL management have been accused of negligence in the incident.

Litigation

Armenia

In early 2007, the Armenian government began an investigation of AGRC, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, vis-a-vis compliance with licensing and tax regulations following independent media claims that AGRC submitted incorrect data in production reports relating to royalty payments and was in violation of licensing laws. AGRC was also served a preliminary notice of penalties and fines to the tune of about $50 million (or 80 per cent of its net assets).

India

In respect of bauxite mines at Lanjigarh, Orissa, public interest litigations were filed in 2004 by Indian non-government organisations led by the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties to the Supreme Court sub-committee regarding the potential environmental impact of the mines. The Ministry of Environment and Forests received reports from expert organisations and has submitted its recommendations to the Supreme Court.

The sub-committee has found "blatant violations" of environmental regulations and grave concerns about the impact of the Niyamgiri mine on both the environment and the local tribal population. The committee recommended to the Court that mining in such an ecologically sensitive area should not be permitted.

Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal rejected allegations of maltreatment of locals. Agarwal said that the mining project at Niyamgiri has been approved by the Indian Supreme Court based on a process that included consultation with the locals carried out within the bounds of the law, attesting that the majority of the locals supported their industrial efforts. An anonymous official of Vedanta Resources blamed the NGO's attacking Vedanta of being funded by competing foreign mining corporations.

Human rights

In February 2010, the Church of England decided to disinvest from the company on ethical grounds. According to indigenous rights organization, Survival International, the Church’s decision is extremely unusual, as it almost always prefers a policy of 'constructive engagement’ to disinvesting. The Church stated that "we are not satisfied that Vedanta has shown, or is likely in future to show, the level of respect for human rights and local communities that we expect" and that "[it] would be inconsistent with the Church investing bodies’ joint ethical investment policy".

The Director of Survival International, Stephen Corry, said, "The Church’s unprecedented and very welcome decision sends a strong signal to companies that trample on tribal peoples’ rights: we will not bankroll your abuses. Anybody that has shares in Vedanta should sell them today if they care about human rights."

Vedanta responded by expressing disappointment at the Church's actions, and that they are "fully committed to pursuing its investments in a responsible manner, respecting the environment and human rights".

The NGO Amnesty International has also come to criticize the company's record on human rights. It has stated, "[I]t is clear that Vedanta Resources and its subsidiaries […] have failed to respect the human rights of the people of Lanjigarh and the Niyamgiri Hills." They add, "The proposed bauxite mine […] threatens the survival of a protected Indigenous community […] However, these risks have been largely ignored and consultation with and disclosure of information to affected communities have been almost non-existent."

Following this controversy, several shareholders have joined in selling their shares due to human rights concerns. This includes the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Marlborough Ethical Fund, Millfield House Foundation and PGGM. The British and Norwegian governments have both condemned the project, and Martin Currie Investments has also disinvested following pressure from Survival. The BP Pension Fund has reduced its shareholding over similar concerns. The Economic Times criticized the project in their editoral, stating that if the mine goes ahead it will "impoverish a defenceless populace, perhaps to extinction." On July 2010, the Chief Secretary of the Indian state of Orissa has ordered a new investigation into the rights of the Dongria Kondh tribe affected by Vedanta Resources bauxite mine, in what Survival International characterized as a "third major blow to Vedanta in a month". The announcement came two weeks after the Indian Minister of Environment and Forests ordered an investigation on the same topic. A government investigation published in March concluded that Vedanta’s mine ‘may lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh’.

A four-member panel set up by Government of India in the Ministry of Environment and Forests investigated the bauxite mining proposal over Niyamgiri near Lanjigarh in the districts of Kalahandi and Rayagada in Orissa. The area has been traditional habitat of two particularly vulnerable tribal groups, the Dongria Kondh and the Kutia Kondh. The Committee submitted their report on 16 August 2010, stating "The Vedanta Company has consistently violated the Forest Conservation Act [FCA], the Forest Rights Act [FRA], the Environment Protection Act [EPA] and the Orissa Forest Act in active collusion with the State officials. ..Allowing mining … by depriving two primitive tribal groups of their rights over the proposed mining site to benefit a private company would shake the faith of the tribal people in the laws of the land ".
Full text of the report can be seen at Panel report Based on this panel report,Government of India has served a show cause notice on the Group on why their Stage I environment clearance should not be cancelled.

Legal violations

In July 2010, Sterlite Industries, a subsidiary of Vedanta Group was slapped a tax notice of about Rs. 324 crore (71 million USD as of December 2010) on the company, and charged with violating several rules by the excise department in India.

On 21 August 2010, the customs and excise department charged Vedanta group's Tuticorin-based Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd for evading duty by mis-declaration of export consignment. The company officials, however, charged the customs officials as being vindictive.

Charging Sterlite Industries for misdeclaration, excise officials said the company tried to ship out copper waste for separating gold and silver whereas the waste also contained other precious metals like platinum and palladium .

External links

• Vedanta Resources
• Vedanta Resources profile on the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
• London Stock Exchange company listing 88
• Environmental Protection Group, Orissa
• Survival International – Mine story of a sacred mountain
• Mountain and mine (video) – report by Al-Jazeera English on the Vedanta mining operations in the Niyamgiri hills