Incomparable level of demand from China, for nickel ore, has opened up a sizeable market for the Philippines nickel miners, to expand their export of nickel, and also poking the government to look into the underdeveloped mineral industry, and to take required steps in order to maximize the output, during this period of increasing demand.
The unpredictable, ban on the export of unprocessed nickel from the world’s largest producer of nickel, Indonesia, had left Philippines to become the provider of nickel in the world, including China, the country which uses a high amount of nickel pig iron for the production of stainless steel. The ban was issued when the government was trying to dig out ways to increase the economic contribution towards the mining sector, which was nearly 1 percent in the GDP, even with the presence of untapped mineral resources.
In the year 2013, Philippines was ranked as the biggest producer of nickel along with Indonesia, by the US Geological Survey, and the country is now increasing its output of nickel with great speed and enthusiasm. Marcventures Holdings, a Philippines based nickel miner, announced that the company had received approval from the government to expand the operations in the company’s mines. The Mines and Geoscience Beauro granted the mine with a permit to extract nickel ore from 4,799 hectares site, which Mindanao’s Surigao del Sur province.