US roadshow seeks fresh mining investments

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines is encouraging fresh investments from the United States to sustain the momentum of the country’s fast expanding mining industry to allow it to surpass the more than $4 billion in revenues generated last year.

The Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. said mining is one of the key sectors that Manila wants promoted during the 2nd Investment Roadshow organized by Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr. in coordination with the Philippine Consulates General in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

“The positive outlook presented by the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines is expected to translate to new investments in our minerals sector,” Cuisia said.

He pointed to the more than $20 billion in ongoing mining projects that include a number that require additional investments.

In his presentations before American corporate and government executives and Filipino-American businessmen in Los Angeles and Chicago, Chamber of Mines president Benjamin Philip Romualdez disclosed that the positive outlook in the mineral development sector would allow the government to surpass its investment target for 2013 from $718 million to $1 billion.

“In 2011, Philippine mines yielded a total gross mineral production of $4 billion with large-scale mines accounting for $2.2 billion and small-scale mines and non-metallic mines producing $1.88 billion,” said Romualdez, who is also chief executive officer of Benguet Corp.

As of October 2012, he said some 1,600 exploration, mining, and processing applications are currently being evaluated, while some $20 billion of permitted projects are now in various stages of development, including a number that need fresh investments.

According to Romualdez, the big-ticket items that are currently in the pipeline are the Tampakan copper-gold project of Sagittarius Mines Inc.; Far Southeast copper-gold project of Gold Fields/Lepanto; Boyongan copper-gold project of Philex Mining/Silangan Mindanao Mining; Didipio copper-gold Mine of Oceanagold; Balatoc Tailings project and Greater Acupan gold project of Benguet Corp.; and Co-O Gold Project of Philsaga Mining Corp.

Romualdez said the Philippines is ideal for mining investors not only because of its wide selection of brownfield projects in gold, copper, nickel, iron ore, manganese and chromite, but also because of the existence of a legal regime that allows for 100 percent foreign ownership of mining projects through Financing or Technical Assistance Agreements (FTAA) or a 60/40 sharing through Mineral Production Sharing Agreements (MPSA).