Eagle Cement investing $300 M for Davao plant

Businessman Ramon Ang, through his company Eagle Cement, is pouring in $ 300 million to construct a new cement plant in Davao City as he expressed optimism on Mindanao’s bright prospects.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new facility is scheduled on Oct. 20.

Ang, president and CEO of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp., is putting up the plant to boost production and meet increasing demand from robust infrastructure activities in and outside of Manila.

The new plant will have the capacity to produce two million tons or 50 million bags of cement per year.

Ang had identified Davao as a key growth area for the Philippines. In 2013, its power subsidiary San Miguel Global Power Holdings Inc. broke ground for a new power generation facility in Malita, Davao.

The new 300- megawatt power plant, which is part of a 2000-hectare PEZA-accredited industrial estate SMC is building in the province, is now fully online.

It is seen to improve power security in the Mindanao region and provide lower electricity rates to the zone and beyond.

For the industrial estate, locators will enter into long-term lease contracts with SMC, which manages the estate on behalf of farmer cooperatives.

The industrial estate, a PEZA-approved project, is expected to spur private investments and help further boost the economy of Davao, Ang said.

It will also have an international port with a depth of up to 20 meters, and a private airport with a concrete runway, he added.

While having its own private airport, the SMC Davao Industrial Estate is also highly accessible via the Davao City and General Santos City international airports as well as the Davao seaport.

Ang is building five new cement plants in different parts of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao with an estimated cost of about $1 billion.

The five new plants will have a total annual capacity of 10 million metric tons and should be running by next year.

The plants will be put up either by affiliates Northern Cement and Eagle Cement in Pangasinan, Bulacan, Quezon, Cebu and Davao, with a capacity of two million metric tons each.

SMC owns a 35 percent stake in Northern-Cement, a company owned by SMC chairman Eduardo Cojuangco while Eagle Cement is privately owned by Ang.

It has been diversifying and has in recent years paved the way for aggressive expansion into the extractive industries, investing significantly in cement, mining and power.