PHILIPPINE Xin Ye Industry Ltd. Inc. (Xin Ye), a subsidiary of Taiwan Xinye Precious Metal Technology Co. Ltd., said it is planning to construct two more environment-friendly ore-stripping facilities in the Philippines by 2019.
It is also the firm’s first ore-stripping facility set up in the country.
“Maybe next year before it ends [we will build] two more—one in Baguio and another in Camarines Norte,” Liao said.
It took six months to construct its first ore-stripping facility in Sitio Sulok, Barangay Ugong, Valenzuela City, costing around $1 million.
Liao added it costs about $1.2 million for the construction of their patented cyanide-free gold-stripping method called GP-860.
“For me, personally, not for Xin Ye, we will be able to sell maybe around 100 units in the next five years,” he said.
Liao said their Taiwan-based company has two ways in operating in the Philippines: first is by selling the stripping machine and chemical solution and second by operating through a partnership with local mining firms.
“In Plan A, we will sell the machine and chemical solution, which is eco-friendly, and transfer the technical knowledge,” he said. “Plan B is to operate. We will build the machine and warehouse in the mining area of a company and have profit or gold sharing.”
Liao said some mining firms have already expressed to buy equipment from them, but did not disclose it as of press time as negotiations are still ongoing. Liao added they are talking with more than 20 local mining firms, with four big companies in Mindanao.
Liao said their facility has a base daily capacity of 15 metric tons of ore that could produce about 750 grams of pure gold.
Liao added the return of investment for their machinery would take about four months to six months, depending on the operations of the mining firm.
“We can make bigger [capacity] depending on the needs of the company. I think we can make as high as 50 metric tons per day,” he said.
The firm’s technology does not make use of cyanide or mercury, among other toxic chemicals. Using Xin Ye’s solution, the ore-to-gold process would only take about eight hours.
This compares with the two- to nearly eight-day dissolution period in the traditional extraction process, which involves the use of the banned chemical mercury, widely used by small-scale miners in the Philippines who produce about 70 percent of the country’s annual gold production.