India throws $15-bn lifeline to world iron ore miners

The roughly 100 million tonnes of lost exports at the current average price of around $110 per tonne and another potential 30 million tonnes of imports of higher-quality ore at around $140 per tonne will cost India $15 billion, according to Reuters calculations, money that goes straight into the pockets of foreign miners picking up the slack.

India's role switch is one reason for a rebound in iron ore prices, which this year fell below $87 a tonne to their lowest since 2009 due to China's slowing economic growth. India's iron ore exports to China fell to less than 300,000 tonnes in October — the lowest in at least two decades — after the ban in Goa. That followed a mining ban in Karnataka in 2011, after shipments there were halted a year earlier.

Goa's once-bustling mining hubs have turned into ghost towns, with scores of empty trucks parked by roadside. Trains, some still loaded with ore, are stopped on the tracks. "We have been sitting idle for over two months now," said Pritesh Gawas, a 25-year-old worker at Sesa Goa's Sonshi mine.

In January-October, India's shipments to its biggest market stood at 32.6 million tonne, down nearly half from a year ago, Chinese

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