Foreign firms mull $10 billion investments in Philippine nickel sector

MANILA, Philippines — Two foreign firms are considering investing $10 billion in the country’s nickel processing industry, according to the Bureau of Investments (BOI).

On the sidelines of a forum organized by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) yesterday, Trade Undersecretary and BOI managing head Ceferino Rodolfo told reporters that one Chinese firm and another foreign firm have expressed interest in investing in nickel processing in the country.

Rodolfo said the interested firms could bring in $5 billion worth of investments each.

For the Chinese company, Rodolfo said they are already actively seeking partners in the country.

“They have already talked to someone. Hopefully they can come to an agreement and have an MOU (memorandum of understanding) so they could progress to more technical studies,” Rodolfo said in a mix of English and Filipino.

In contrast, the other non-Chinese firm is looking at partnering with local mining companies for their nickel processing venture in the country.

Asked when the investments would be made, Rodolfo said it could happen before the end of the year.

Rodolfo expressed the importance of investments in nickel processing to increase the value of the nickel the country exports.

In line with pushing for more investments in nickel processing, Rodolfo assured the country would not derogate its environmental policy, environmental protection and labor protection.

“We won’t derogate that because that’s very important for us because whatever nickel we are able to process is geared towards batteries, batteries that will be used by global brands that have very, very strict ESG (environment, social and governance) compliance policies. So that is critical to us,” he said.

Trade Secretary Alfred Pascual has been pushing for the shift to the processing of minerals instead of exporting raw ores, given the country’s resources of green metals.

“Mineral processing is crucial given our resources of green metals, such as nickel, copper, and cobalt. These minerals can be used for downstream industries, such as electric vehicles, battery manufacturing, hyperscaler data centers and renewable energy projects,” Pascual said earlier.

“The Philippines can be a vital partner for these critical minerals, not as an exporter of raw ores, which is what is happening now, but as a processor and producer of semi-finished and finished products.We have Indonesia as a model,” he said.