Oriental plans $300-m ferronickel, power plants

Manila Standard Today
by Jenniffer B. Austria


Listed Oriental Peninsula Resources Group Inc. is investing $300 million to put up ferronickel and coal-fired power plants.


Oriental Peninsula president Caroline Tanchay said in an interview the planned ferronickel plant would have a monthly capacity of as much as 300,000 tons, or about 1.8 million tons annually.


Tanchay said the plant would enable the company to process the nickel ore into higher end product instead of just exporting raw material.


Tanchay said the company, during the recent state visit of President Aquino in China, signed an agreement with a Chinese company to establishment a ferronickel plant.


She said Oriental Peninsula would finance construction of the plant, with the Chinese company as technical partner.


Oriental Peninsula is also considering the possibility of building a coal-fired power plant with capacity of between 50 megawatts and 60 MW.


Tanchay said the company planned to build the two plants within the next four to five years.


She said the company would start increasing nickel ore shipments next year to six per month, especially during the dry season.


“Our mines shall see expansion as we target to do at least six shipments per month starting summer next year. We shall invest more and expand even better to meet the growing demand for high-quality nickel ores in China and Australia and the rest of the world,” Tanchay said.


Oriental Peninsula swung to profitability in the second quarter after the mining firm started commercial operations and shipped nickel ore to overseas buyers.


The company posted a net profit attributable to controlling equity holders of P280.38 million in the second quarter, a turnaround from an P8.7-million net loss a year ago when it was still in a pre-operating stage.


First half net profit also stood at P277.16 million, a reversal of the P16.6-million net loss in the first half of 2010 as revenues reached P312.9 million.


The company started commercial operations at Narra mine in Palawan in March and made 13 shipments so far. The Espanola mine also in Palawan started operations in August with one shipment so far.