THE Wellex Group of plastics king William Gatchalian is branching into mining through a P473-million beneficiated nickel ore production project in Dinagat, northern Mindanao.

The publicly-listed firm set up a new subsidiary called Wellex Mining Corp. for this project and is set to start commercial operations in July 2009.

Wellex Mining expects to produce 1.2 million wet metric tons of beneficiated (processed) nickel ore per year. This will be sold to markets in Macau, Japan, China, Taiwan and India.

The project qualified for full incentives under the 2007 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP), which was still in place when the company applied for registration with the Board of Investments.

The 2008 IPP, which does not grant income-tax holidays to mining activities that have no processing components, took effect last Friday.

It is a new project that the company obtained through a deed of assignment from the North Dinagat Corp. The project, once operational, will provide employment to 160 individuals.

Meanwhile, the Board of Investments also approved the grant of incentives to the P1.81-billion hog-production project submitted by Monterey Foods Corp. for its development in Sumilao, Bukidnon.

Monterey Foods, which is 70.57-percent owned by San Miguel Corp. (SMC), will put up a controlled climate facility in its integrated agro-industrial farm in the area that is capable of producing 199,569 hogs per year. To be produced in the facility are “live marketable hogs” bred from Camborough gilts and PIC-337 lean boars.

The project was at the center of a dispute between the Department of Agrarian Reform and the Sumilao farmers who walked from Bukidnon to Manila to protest the transfer of their ancestral land to the corporation.

The Monterey project, which will receive a host of perks that includes income-tax holiday and duty-free importation of raw materials and capital equipment, is scheduled to start commercial operation by February 2009. 

The company is partnering with the Pig Improvement Co., a global provider of genetically superior breeds of hogs. The facility that will be built in the area will have tunnel ventilation and evaporative system to control climatic conditions. Some 161 people are expected to be employed by the project.

The project is part of SMC’s integrated agro-industrial zone program in northern Mindanao.

WHY us?

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) Group on Wednesday raised this question during a public hearing on the government’s proposal to limit access charges in short message service (SMS).

Wellex ventures into nickel mining

THE Wellex Group of plastics king William Gatchalian is branching into mining through a P473-million beneficiated nickel ore production project in Dinagat, northern Mindanao.

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