More mines seen to open amid push for e-vehicles

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will likely see more mines opening up within as early as three years as the government expedites its push for electronic vehicles.

On the sidelines of the recent 57th Asian Development Bank (ADB) Annual Meeting in Tbilisi, non-government organization Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) raised concern on the idea of climate-smart mining (CSM) initiated by multilateral lenders.

The World Bank said CSM aims to support resource-rich developing countries to decarbonize and reduce the material footprint of critical mineral supply chains required for clean energy transition.

But it also targets to enable countries to benefit through sustainable development from increasing demand for such minerals.

ADB approved its first CSM technical assistance worth $500,000 to mining country Mongolia in end-2023.

ATM national coordinator Jaybee Garganera warned that this could be a precedent for ADB to initiate similar assistance to neighboring economies with mining potential such as the Philippines or for governments to apply with ADB.

“I don’t see this as impossible for us because President Marcos already has a directive that the Philippines be a player in transition to clean energy,” Garganera told The STAR.

“If we justify that, we will be needing more nickel and copper to fast-track the production of electric batteries,” he said.

Last week, Marcos ordered the Department of Energy and other concerned agencies to expedite the e-vehicle development plan.

This is aimed at strengthening the local manufacturing of e-vehicles and supporting battery charging mechanisms to encourage the electrification of the public transport sector.

While e-vehicles have lower emissions that could help climate change, the industry relies on raw minerals to power it up.

“How can it be climate-smart when you’re still going to open up more mines? Most likely we will open up and supply the raw materials because we still don’t have a big downstream industry,” Garganera said.

“And it would take years before we really benefit from e-vehicles. We really don’t need more electric cars, we need a better public transport system,” he said.

ATM said opening up more mines could happen in as fast as two to three years given the push of the government.

Garganera said this is already starting to show as evident in its monitoring of increased application and actual renewal of nickel and copper mines.

Further, the continued ore export ban of Indonesia, a supplier of at least one-fourth of the world’s mineral needs, will further encourage the Philippines to ramp up production.

“Indonesia is unlikely to lift its export ban because its downstream is working well. So the pressure for higher demand for raw products is on us,” Garganera said.

As of now, mining in the Philippines is still not fully tapped considering that there are nine million hectares identified as having high mineral potential, but only 2.6 percent is covered by mining tenements.