PHL EYES JAPAN, US NICKEL ORE MARKET VIA MINERALS DEAL

THE Philippines needs to accede to the critical mineral agreement between the United States and Japan to ensure “resiliency of supply” of nickel ores and to enable the Philippines to attract more investments into mineral processing, according to Trade and Industry Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual.

“Now, Japan has a critical mineral agreement with the US, but they don’t produce nickel ores. Nickel ores come from the Philippines through a Japanese company that has a processing plant here. Not large scale, yes Sumitomo. They have two [high-pressure acid leach] HPAL processing plants,” Pascual told reporters at a recent briefing.

The Trade chief underscored the need for the country to be part of the agreement between the two developed economies to ensure “resiliency of supply.”

“And I told our meeting that if it’s difficult to have one-onone or bilateral critical minerals agreement between the Philippines and the US, what we can do is just accede to what is existing now, which is the Japanese and American critical minerals agreement,” added Pascual.

According to him, critical minerals was among the topics discussed at the recent trilateral meeting with the trade chiefs of Japan and the US. He said he emphasized the country’ s status as a major producer of critical minerals.

He also noted that now that Indonesia has banned export of nickel ores, the Philippines is the only major producer of mineral ores that is still selling to the global market, particularly China.

“So, China is able to get, I think, 90 percent of our export of nickel ores, giving them a major hold on the nickel market, particularly the downstream products coming out from nickel, meaning battery precursors and batteries, themselves,” the Philippines’s trade chief said.

From a “strategic” standpoint, Pascual said, this would affect the supply needed by countries like Japan and eventually, the United States.

Pascual noted that while this is still a proposal by Manila and there is no common agreement yet, “The Japanese are open to it,” while the US government still has to decide on the matter.

“We just proposed the idea, then they have to mull it over,” said Pascual.

Explaining the importance of this agreement, he noted that if the country is part of it, there will be an assurance of supply for the US and Japan.

“This proposed agreement will be a good signal and an incentive for the Private Sector to invest in ore processing in the Philippines. The US and Japan and the rest of the world need the Philippines’s critical minerals, especially nickel, cobalt and copper,” the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said in a statement last week.

Meanwhile, Pascual said Manila can also take advantage of this agreement by attracting US companies to invest in mineral processing in the Philippines.

It is difficult to persuade US firms if the Philippines is not part of such an agreement, he explained, adding, “The way I see it, the American investors, if we are not part of such agreement, they don’t have the signal that the Philippines is okay [to invest in].”

Early this year, the Board of Investments (BOI) Managing Head Ceferino S. Rodolfo said the Philippines is focusing on attracting investments in nickel processing, particularly those that would produce battery precursor materials.

(See: https://-.com.ph/2024/01/05/phl-eyeing-nickel-processingto-propel-bid-to-grab-no-2spot-in-asean-fdi-race/)