One of India's first investors in the local resources industry saw its shares slide yesterday after the company announced it had hit potentially dangerous ground conditions at its Mt Gordon copper mine in north Queensland.

Aditya Birla, Australia's fourth largest copper miner, was forced to stop mining in an area of the underground operation because of stability problems.

The news, which could cut the group's annual production by about 10 per cent, sent its shares 10¢ lower to $2.56.

Mt Gordon is the group's second string Australian operation, with its main producer being the Nifty mine in Western Australia.

But Mt Gordon was forecast to produce about 35,000 tonnes of copper this year out of the group's total predicted production of 88,000.

Group chief executive Sanjay Loyalka said mining had stopped in one of seven areas at Mt Gordon and that the area would be monitored and steps would be taken to make sure continued mining would be safe.

Unfortunately for Aditya Birla, the unstable area was expected to produce most of the mine's copper in the near future.

Mr Loyalka said the monitoring would take up to six to 10 weeks and cost between 7000 and 8000 tonnes of copper production for the current financial year.