Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual yesterday admitted expensive cost of power is the biggest constraint in attracting investments in Nicke processing in the Philippines.
Responding to a question at the Makati Business Club forum yesterday, Pascual said the Philippines is exploring alternative energy sources to bring down the cost of power but these will take years to complete.
“Nuclear will take five years minimum, seven years normally. Even offshore wind takes five years,” Pascual said.
At the forum, Hae Kyong Yu, ambassador of Australia to the Philippines, asked Pascual what measures are being undertaken to achieve the objective of getting investments in nickel processing to the country.
The ambassador raised concern that given the high energy prices in the Philippines, investing in this venture may not be so competitive.
“This is a big challenge,” he said, noting the Philippines can attract a specific market like Europe.
“If we are going to target the European market, there is a chance because of the measures they are implementing in Europe now which is to impose a tax on on non- green products.
If we are going to use green energy to fire the plant for processing mineral ores, it’d be a little bit more expensive, but might be compensated by the premium that the Europeans are prepared to pay. That’s why it’s critical how we play this,” Pascual said.
In the same forum, Pascual said the foreign companies the Philippines is trying to bring as investors are those engaged in the processing of nickel ores and other minerals the country has.
This is to increase the local value-added of mineral products before they are exported.
He cited as an example the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) as a competency since the Philippines supplies raw materials which is nickel ore.
“We export 90 percent of our nickel ores to China and import from China batteries (for EVs) (which come from) the nickel ores (we export). The price difference is in the order of 10 to 20 times,” Pascual said.
He added “We (want to) keep most of the value in the Philippines. It’s also part of our industrialization strategy, because we’re so late already in heavy industries. We have a chance of industrializing in technology-based industries like the energy transition.”
