‘Happy birthday, NAC. Keep on nurturing active communities as you march forward with nickel, the green metal, and now renewables, into a greener future for the country!’
YESTERDAY, we had a simple celebration at the office. In the lobby, a large screen TV was airing looped videos of our past company parties, while HR set up a photo booth and a portion of a wall on which we wrote our greetings. (I realized too late that we were supposed to write on the Manila paper, though — but that’s a different story). We also had mass (and I did the second reading from Galatians, believe it or not) after which everyone had a boxed lunch that, unfortunately, we had to enjoy at our desks for social distancing purposes.
The occasion for the celebration? Nickel Asia Corporation (aka NAC; PSE: NIKL) was marking its 14th year since its incorporation with the SEC on July 24, 2008. Since July 24 this year fell on a Sunday, the company held the celebration two days later.
Believe it or not, NAC — now the country’s largest producer of lateritic nickel ore — traces its roots to what President and CEO Martin Antonio “Dennis” Zamora describes as an “accident of fate.” You see, in the late 1960s, there was a logging concession in southern Palawan that banker Leonides Virata and his 27-year-old assistant, Atty. Manny Zamora, wanted to be evaluated. And they sent an expert to do so — except that the one sent was a geologist and not a forester. So, instead of looking skyward he was examining the reddish soil he noticed in the area. What he had stumbled upon was a nickel deposit that may have been — at that time — the largest in these parts of the world. And it was also the start of Rio Tuba Nickel, the oldest of the five operating mines that now comprise the mining business of NAC.
In its 14th year, Dennis — the youngest son of Atty. Zamora — is leading NAC into a new but exciting territory: renewable energy. The NAC RE subsidiary, Emerging Power Inc. (EPI), recently signed a joint venture agreement with Shell Overseas Investments to establish 1 GW of renewable energy power, and that’s just the beginning. So, the NAC of 2008, which was solely a mining business, is now truly a natural resources business whose activities contribute to what is called the “green economy.”
Thankfully, Dennis is leading the charge into the future with far more deliberations and less reliance on accidents. I say thankfully, because as an employee of NAC I have a front row seat to all of these, and get to savor the company’s generosity, especially during good years. And the last few years haven’t been bad at all. Frankly, I am even more excited about the future.
Happy birthday, NAC. Keep on nurturing active communities as you march forward with nickel, the green metal, and now renewables, into a greener future for the country!
