MRC Allied pushes permit process for Tampakan-Kiblawan mines

MANILA, Philippines—Publicly-listed mining company MRC Allied Inc. said Monday it has been getting closer to obtaining all the other government permits to bring the Tampakan-Kiblawan Mines in Mindanao to production level.

The asset is technically located in the municipalities of Kiblawan, Davao del Sur and Columbio, Sultan Kudarat but shares the Tampakan, South Cotabato boundary with the $5.9-billion Tampakan copper-gold project led by global mining giant Xstrata Copper.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, MRC Allied president and CEO Benjamin M. Bitanga said the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) has approved the “Free and Prior Informed Consent” previously obtained from the affected IPs.
“This approval by the NCIP shall make way for the issuance of the appropriate Certificate of Precondition,” Bitanga said.

IP consent and the so-called certificate of precondition are part of the permitting process for mining exploration and development projects.

MRC Allied subsidiary MRC Tampakan Mines Inc, which serves as the vehicle for the mining project, is poised for an initial public offering (IPO) in 2011.

In February, MRC Allied CFO Vicente Laza said the IPO might follow a P1.5-billion private placement fundraising which the holding firm has been working on.

Currently, MRC Allied is 87 percent owned by Menlo Capital Corp. and the rest is publicly owned.

Menlo, in turn, is 10-percent owned by Lucio Tan Jr., whose shares in the company were diluted following a 500-million share offering that all went to Mariano Osmeña. Osmeña now controls 60 percent of Menlo and the rest are with small shareholders.