Oriental Peninsula Resources Group Inc. (ORE) is investing $10 million, or about P430 million, in the construction of a sintering plant that will enable the company to produce semi-processed metals using the output from its Palawan mines.
At the sidelines of the company’s stockholders’ meeting Thursday, ORE chairperson Caroline L. Tanchay said this facility, which would be operational by next year, would boost company earnings and contribute to the government’s goal of increasing exports of semi-processed metals.
ORE, through its 94-percent equity investment in Citinickel Mines and Development Corp., produces about 550,00 tons of low-grade nickel-iron per month during the dry season and 150,000 tons per month in the wet season from its Pulot and Toronto mines, both in Palawan.
In the first quarter this year, the volume of shipments stood at 1.076 million wet metric tons. Pulot made nine shipments while Toronto had 12 shipments. These were sold to buyers from China, Australia, Japan and Europe.
These figures, she said, were higher compared to the levels in the fourth quarter of 2011, when the company produced 321,521 wet metric tons.
“Despite an increase in shipments, the quality of nickel mined is classified as low-grade high iron,” she said, adding that to achieve the targets, the company had to jack up operations capacity and increase production.
“So far, we have explored only 13 percent of the total area. We hope to expand operations and mine…to achieve an increase of 3 million tons in shipments in 2012,” she said.