CVMR has said that if talks on Nonoc, which has the capacity to produce 41,000 tonnes of nickel a year or 3 percent of world demand, were successful it would speed up the acquisition and building of the infrastructure for a large refinery.

The group has put an initial price tag of $3 billion on the capital cost of building a refinery but has cautioned that is only from a pre-feasibility study.

Duenas said if they agreed a deal on Nonoc, which was shut in 1982 due to low nickel prices and high energy costs, they would send the intermediate products to Jilin Nickel for processing while their refinery in the Philippines was being built.

CVMR has a 10 percent stake in Jilin Nickel, China’s second-largest nickel producer.

“Our organization plans to get Jilin involved,” said Duenas. “There is still a Chinese component to this.”

Last month, Philnico ended talks about a joint venture to develop Nonoc with Jinchuan Group. Ltd, China’s largest nickel producer, amid disagreement over how to divide ownership and the treatment of Philnico’s debts.

Hong Kong-based Compline Resources Co. owns 55 percent of Philnico, Australia’s Pacific Energy Ltd. owns around 30 percent and the rest is owned by local investors.

“The Philippines is top of our list,” Garzon Duenas, executive director of the privately held group, told Reuters on Wednesday.

CVMR wants to develop a 60,000 tonne-per-year integrated nickel mine, smelter and refinery in the Philippines and is in talks with Philnico Industrial Corp. about reopening the Nonoc mine in the south of the country.

source news reference : business.inquirer.net