Outlook on the nickel industry of the country remains “compelling” driven by rising global demand that is increasingly shifting to clean energy.
In a statement, the Philippine Nickel Industry Association (PNIA) said aside from being a critical component in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, raw nickel ore is also processed to create stainless steel which is used in the development of mega cities and in renewable energy technologies.
Dante Bravo, PNIA president, said in a statement current value of investments in the global EV industry alone is at $300 billion and this is expected to grow to $1 trillion as EV sales are seen to double within the next five years.
“Clean energy and smart cities cannot be realized without nickel as nickel has cross-cutting use in the development and manufacture of various clean energy technologies such as EVs, solar panels, power grid systems, wind turbines and new technologies such as hydrogen-based energy,” Bravo said.
Bravo added demand for nickel will continue to be influenced by China which is rolling out an infrastructure investment plan.
PNIA said the Philippines needs to attract investments in exploration, processing and further development of local nickel reserves.
“Currently, we only have 34 nickel mines and production is typically influenced by global nickel supply and price. Production in 2022 is at 29.2 million dry metric tons (dmt). Meanwhile, first quarter 2023 production is at 3.9 million dmt. We can expect significant growth in production if we start to attract investments in mining exploration and there is a clear viable track towards value-added processing,” Bravo said.
Even with 30 operational nickel mines, the country only has two successfully operating nickel processing plants.
A processing plant needs at least 100 million tons of raw nickel ore to be considered viable.
“The industry needs a lot of support from the government, be more open to exploration and make it easy for foreign investors to come in. We need to map out what we have and what we don’t have. We have the capability to mine nickel, but there is a whole value chain in value-added processing leading to the manufacturing of battery that needs to be enabled guided by the right government policies and programs,” Bravo said.
PNIA is conducting policy discussions with government counterparts and stakeholders to pursue common direction towards making the local mining sector competitive and attractive to investments.
The collective value of direct shipping nickel ore and its nickel products, mixed nickel-cobalt sulfide and scandium oxalate accounted for P23.85 billion or 40.48 percent of the total metallic mineral production value as of first quarter As of end-2022, class A nickel reserves or commercially recoverable resources were valued at P246.25 billion equivalent to 557.86 million metric tons.
