DAVAO CITY—A Makati-based Filipino mining company has asked the government to support its move in rescinding the joint venture to mine nickel in southern Davao Oriental, citing alleged lack of interest in its foreign partner to place the project in priority.

In a letter to Environment Secretary Jose Atienza, Ruben Tan, vice president of the Asiaticus Management Corp. (Amcor), said that its decision to end their joint venture to mine the nickel deposit in the Magum-Pujada Bay area “was not done as a whim.”

“It was done after years of frustration and disappointment, considering the years we gave our trust and efforts to make the joint venture succeed,” he said in the three-page letter. The letter was dated April 4, a copy of which was obtained by the BusinessMirror over the weekend.

Tan said that in Amcor’s dealing with Australian-Canadian mining company BHP Billiton, its partner in the Hallmark Nickel Project in the Pujada Bay area, “there has been a pattern of irregularities in work output, expense and BHP’s commitment to a swift and effective development of the Pujada project.”

Tan said that Amcor, the umbrella of seven local mining companies that tied up with BHP Billiton in 2003, was dismayed in discovering that the Pujada Bay nickel project was relegated farther down the priority of explorations and mining by the BHP Billiton.

Tan said that it saw in the BHP Billiton web site, in two occasions, how the project was first queued up in the long list of projects spread elsewhere in the world, at past the 2013 timeline, and a month later, pushed farther in the 2019 or 2020 timeline.

“This is not the type of foreign investor the country needs to help it create dollar reserves and jobs for the local communities involved,” he said.

Amcor said it promised the government “to take action to begin its drilling program and meet its objective to ship out nickel laterite ore within a year,” if the Amcor would succeed in rescinding the contract.

Amcor rescinded the contract of the joint-venture agreement on July 25 last year with Queensland Nickel Inc.-Philippines (QNIP), the company that represents BHP Billiton here, said a record from the Regional Trial Court in Makati City. The court handled the case last year of Amcor, which sought a temporary restraining order to allow Amcor unhampered operation in the area.

The QNIP-BHP Billiton said, however, that the dispute over rescinding the contract for a joint venture “was premature,” according to the court, which further said that according to the QNIP-BHP Billiton, their “shareholders’ agreement allegedly provided that any dispute should be resolved through arbitration and not through court action.”

The dispute remained at status quo.

Last year the BHP Billiton shipped out 40 tons of laterite nickel-containing soil in its concession in Magum and was sent for metallurgical testing in Australia, en route for a finalization of its feasibility study.

Nothing moved since then, a source close to Amcor said. In the same letter, Tan said that based on the data submitted by the BHP Billiton, “it was ascertained that 2019 would be the earliest start date for ore production at the Pujada project.”

This was contrary to what the Amcor was promised by its partner that “in five years [after the joint venture in 2003], the mine would be producing, they would build a $1.5-billion smelting plant and they would spend $85 million in exploration.”

“A lot of words, a bag of hot air in actions,” Tan said.

The local Mines and GeoSciences Bureau here was also earlier informed that the BHP Billiton project in the Magum-Pujada area would be operational in 2010.

Tan said the Amcor group owns the mineral rights over a total area of 11,799 hectares. The concession is found in the boundary area with San Isidro town in the southwest. A former company consultant of the BHP Billiton said that experts estimated the nickel deposit at 200 metric tons.

Nickel is a silvery white material that takes on a high polish. It belongs to the iron-cobalt group of metals extensively used for making stainless steel and other corrosion-resistant alloys and to make coins and nickel steel for armor plates and burglar-proof vaults.

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DAVAO CITY—A Makati-based Filipino mining company has asked the government to support its move in rescinding the joint venture to mine nickel in southern Davao Oriental, citing alleged lack of interest in its foreign partner to place the project in priority.

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