DMCI Mining upbeat to hit 500K-ton target this year

June 12, 2017 - 7:06 PM
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A view of nickel ore stockpiles at DMCI Mining Corporation's mine in Sta Cruz Zambales in northern Philippines February 7, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

CORON, Palawan, Philippines – DMCI Mining, a unit of DMCI Holdings, Inc., is upbeat to hit its target shipment of nickel ore for the whole 2017 as the company is resuming the exports of the commodity this month.

DMCI Mining president Cesar Simbulan told reporters that the company is already shipping more than half of its target shipment this year set at 500,000 tons.

For June alone, Simbulan said DMCI Mining will have a total shipment of 200,000 tons both from its subsidiaries Berong Nickel Corporation (BNC) in Palawan and Zambales Diversified Metals Corporation (ZDMC) in Zambales.

Berong and Zambales mines have two shipments each in June. Each shipment has 50,000 tons of nickel ore.

Simbulan said three shipments will be for the Chinese market and the other one is for Japan.

“We had shipments of 150,000 tons,” the DMCI Mining chief said in Filipino. He was pertaining to its exports before June.

He added that the company will still have shipments next month.

Employees to be re-hired

DMCI will also start to re-hire its employees, according to Simbulan.

In a previous media briefing, Simbulan said DMCI Mining lost nearly a thousand of employees, with only 240 employees left at end-March 2017 from 1,220 personnel in May 2016.

This is after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ordered the shutdown of ZDMC and 22 other mines, while BNC was among the five mines with suspension orders.

Meanwhile, Simbulan clarified that the shipments for the first half of the year were stockpiles from its two mines.