Century Peak unit gets amended ECC for Leyte coke plant

MANILA, Philippines - Century Peak Metals Holdings Corp. said its 55-percent owned unit Century Hua Guang Smelting Inc. (CHGSI) has been awarded an amended environmental compliance certificate (ECC) by the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB).

The ECC covers the installation of a coking coal plant to be located at the Leyte Industrial Development Estate (LIDE) in Isabel, Leyte. It shall be a support system to CHGSI’s ferro-nickel smelting plant, since coke is a foremost raw material for the production of ferro-nickel alloy.

“It is CHGSI’s approach to making the ferro-nickel smelting plant as self-sustaining as possible,” Centry Peak said.

CHGSI was registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) in October 2009. It plans to build and operate a nickel pig iron smelting plant with an annual capacity of 100,000 metric tons.

Its parent, Century Peak, aims to be a vertically integrated mining operation and believes a combination of nickel ore extraction operation and a nickel pig iron smelting plant will be economically advantageous, given that the smelting plant assures the utilization of the extracted ore in the scenario where there are decreases in world nickel prices.

The company is engaged in promoting, operating, managing, holding, acquiring or investing in corporations or entities that are engaged in mining or mining-related activities.