Nickel Asia sees ‘okay’ profit for 3rd quarter

THE COUNTRY’S top nickel miner on Thursday said its third quarter profit is “okay,” after seeing improved ore prices.

Nickel Asia Corp. President and CEO Gerard H. Brimo, described the company’s net income for the July to September period as “okay,” as nickel prices improved “a little bit better” than a year ago.

“We are expecting slightly lower volume but bigger revenues (this year),” Mr. Brimo told reporters on the sidelines of the 38th board meeting of the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in Pasay City Wednesday night.

Nickel Asia’s net income for the first six months of the year reached P2.197 billion, a massive jump from the P251.2 million logged in the same period last year.

In 2016, the firm’s net profit fell 11% to P2.711 billion from the P3.044 billion in the prior year. Revenues last year stood at P14.122 billion, 8% lower than 2015’s P15.431 billion.

Nickel- extracting companies reeled last year from depressed world ore prices on the back of the economic slowdown in China which has the biggest appetite for nickel, the raw material for stainless steel and other corrosionresistant alloys.

This year, miners saw last year’s losses turn into gains with the rebound in prices. The industry faced a tough policy environment when staunch environmentalist Regina Paz L. Lopez became Environment secretary and implemented a crackdown on erring miners. She was rejected by the Commission on Appointments (CA) last May, and replaced by Roy A. Cimatu.

Widely perceived by miners as backing investor-friendly policies, Mr. Cimatu secured the nod of the CA last month.

“We are all looking forward to meet him as a group. We want to present to him a number of initiatives that have been undertaken,” said Mr. Brimo who is also chairman of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (CoMP).

One of the initiatives that miners are planning to implement soon is the adoption of the so-called Towards Sustainability Mining (TSM) initiative, which will involve the initiative between CoMP and the Mining Association of Canada.

“It is global now. There have been a lot of mining associations from other countries that have adopted it. We will do the same. Hopefully we can sign this in November because it will take us about a year or more to implement it,” Mr. Brimo added.

The TSM is a set of tools and indicators to drive performance and ensure that key mining risks are managed responsibly at the facilities of miners that adopt this method.

Mr. Brimo added the CoMP may modify some of the parameters to align with local policy settings while noting that workshops will be conducted before the initiative is implemented.