Marcventures Mining gets ECC

MANILA, Philippines - Marcventures Mining & Development Corp. (MMDC) has obtained its environmental compliance certificate (ECC) from the government, paving the way for the first shipment of nickel ore from its mine site in Cantillan, Surigao Del Sur to overseas markets.

The ECC, which covers the construction of MMDC’s causeway in the town of Carrascal, Surigao del Sur, allows the company to have its own jetty from which it will ship its nickel ore to buyers in China, Japan and other markets beginning June this year.

MMDC is aiming to ship a total of 500,000 wet metric tons of high grade nickel ore this year, half of which had already been committed for shipment from June to December 2011 to the Noble Group of Singapore under an of agreement signed last December 2010.

The balance of its 2011 production is presently being negotiated, MMDC said.

MMDC, a company headed by former Lepanto Consolidated Mining president Ramon Recto, has a mineral production sharing agreement to mine 4,799 hectares of the Surigao del Sur property for nickel and gold.

The ECC was granted after the government completed its evaluation of MMDC’s ECC application and environmental protection plans.

MMDC has garnered a track record of successful management of potential environmental issues. Even with the record heavy rains experienced recently in Surigao del Sur, the company successfully prevented heavy siltation damage to the environment.

“We know that nickel is an important raw material and, at the same time, we appreciate fully the importance of protecting the environment,” This is why we want to focus our efforts on continuing to build MMDC as a responsible mining company, a big part of which is making sure that we fulfill our environmental obligations,” Recto said.

MMDC’s P474-million nickel mining project was granted tax holidays, duty free importation, and exemption from local government taxes by the Board of Investments.

The company is aiming to produce 600,000 metric tons of nickel ore in the first year of operations. The figure could go up to 800,000 MT and 1.2 million MT in the second and third years, respectively.

It earlier tapped Japan’s Hanwa Co. Ltd. for the exclusive distribution of its nickel ore to countries such as Japan, South Korea, China, India, United States and European countries.

Nickel is commonly used in producing stainless steel, super alloys, electroplating, batteries, coinage, magnets and other industrial and commercial materials.