To support economic growth and work up to tapping into the global clean energy market, the Department of Energy and Natural Resources (DENR) targets launching extensive government-led mineral exploration programs and mineral processing by next year, DENR Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said.
In conducting the large-scale government-led exploration of critical materials, foreign partners including the Australian Government and the US Geological Survey will be providing technical support, she added.
Meanwhile, MGB is set to promote and enable mineral processing as well, particularly for laterite deposits; process nickel, and recover other minerals such as iron, cobalt, and rare earth minerals.
These initiatives anticipated to launch next year aim to maximize the value of the mineral resources extracted across the country and their key role in the transition to renewable energy, economic development, and meeting the demand for critical minerals across the globe.
The distribution of RE, energy storage, and other rising technologies are significantly mineral intensive thus, the demand for critical minerals like nickel will also surge as the push toward a global clean energy transition continues.
Loyzaga also stated that DENR believes in a resilient and sustainable mining industry as a contributing support in the economic and social development of the Philippines.
The mining industry can develop several advancing pathways through investing in social and environmental protections, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction, she added.
The environment sector will follow the mitigation hierarchy in managing resource development which also means: eradicating all possible environmental impacts as much as possible and reducing these impacts to a negligible level while also rehabilitating all affected areas and investing in offsets to attain no net loss or net positive gain.
Amid the shift towards clean energy, local producers of nickel can deliver at least 40 million tons of the mineral ore to address the raw material requirements in producing electric vehicle (EV) batteries globally, according to the Philippine Nickel Industry Association (PNIA).
PNIA President Dante Bravo also said that the country needs to lure more investments that will aid in funding to exploration, processing, value-added processing, and further development of the country’s nickel reserves.
Thus, the mining industry is in need of government support, particularly curation of the appropriate policies and programs to enable and guide the process of the whole value chain in value-added processing towards the manufacturing of batteries.
Currently, there are 34 nickel-operating mines and two existing successful operating nickel processing plants in the Philippines.
