Sumitomo Metal Mining forms P2-billion holding firm

MANILA, Philippines - Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. (SMM), Japan’s largest nickel producer, has formed a P2-billion holding company, based on documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The new firm to be called Sumitomo Metal Mining Philippine Holdings Corp. has a subscribed and paid up capital of P501.59 million.

SMM is building a nickel processing plant in a 670-hectare Special Economic Zone in Calver, Surigao Del Norte in partnership with Nickel Asia Corp. The joint venture is considered the biggest foreign investment in the Philippine mining sector to date with capital infusion of P62.7 billion.

The project is expected to shore up the country’s market share to more than five percent of total nickel production output in three years. 

The project involves the production of nickel-cobalt mixed sulfides from low grade ore and limonite by adopting the high pressure acid leach technology. The plant’s output will be bought by Sumitomo for final processing at its refinery in Japan.

This will be the country’s second downstream nickel processing plant by the Sumitomo-Nickel Asia tandem. The first plant is under Coral Bay Nickel Corp., a joint venture between a Japanese consortium led by SMM and Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corp., another unit of Nickel Asia.

The new plant , which is forecast to generate an annual export of $318 million, is expected to triple the size of the first plant which became operational in 2005. The CBNC plant’s initial capacity of 10,000 tons a year of nickel metal equivalent has since been doubled.