Pacific Nickel Philippines Inc. (PNPI) shipped to China $1 billion worth of minerals from the Surigao mineral reservation, despite the inability of its parent firm to pay its obligations to the government, the Department of Finance (DoF) said.
Citing data from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the DoF said in a statement that PNPI contractor Hinatuan Mining Corp. shipped at least 856,000 wet metric tons of minerals from 2003 to 2008.
“The continuous mining and export of high-grade nickel ore clearly belies Pacific Nickel’s claim of ‘limited operations’” the DoF said.
The DoF reiterated that PNPI had only paid the government $125 million or less than one percent of the $263.8 million the company owes the government.
The amount is what the company should have paid to the Asset Privatization Trust—now called Privatization Management Office—under an amended and restated definitive agreement signed in 1996.
The agreement enabled the company to purchase the government’s interest in Nonoc Mining Industrial Corp. (Nonoc), which had the mining rights in the Surigao mineral reservation.
Last week, PNPI chief executive Evaristo M. Nervaez Jr. was quoted as saying in statement that the company had been paying its dues to the government, contrary to the DoF’s claim.
But the DoF said the P277.6 million that PNPI reportedly paid in the form of taxes, royalties and fees represents obligations from its continued mining operations, and was separate from the purchase value of the state’s interest in Nonoc.
Nervaez also said PNPI returned the bulk of the original nickel refinery, which cost $200 million, to the government without getting any financial credit or reduction in its obligations.
That “amount pertains to the original book value of the old ammonia leach nickel refinery back in 1970s, and which has now been essentially abandoned by PNPI,” the DoF said.
“By the company’s own admission the old refinery is obsolete and needs to be replaced by a more modern high pressure acid leach refinery,” it added.