SMC to make big investments in cement, mining

San Miguel Corp. is making big investments in the mining sector and the cement business, a company official said Thursday. According to SMC president Ramon Ang in a press conference, SMC will invest as much as $750 million to increase the production output of Danding Cojuangco-controlled Northern Cement Corp. (NCC) by expanding its plant in Sison, Pangasinan and building new plants in Luzon and Cebu. Cojuangco is chairman of SMC. Of the total, $250 million will be used to triple the capacity of the Sison plant from one million to three million metric tins (MT). The remaining $500 million will go to the construction of the new plants at $250 million each. In the first quarter, SMC injected P3 billion worth of fresh equity into NCC to acquire a 35-percent interest in the firm. Ang said that SMC expects to eventually get a 30-percent share of the cement market, which is currently dominated by foreign-owned  firms. SMC plans to put up five more plants in the next five years, he added. Mining Ang also said that SMC has offered $75 million to the Privatization and Management Office (PMO) to acquire a controlling stake in Nonoc Mining and Industrial Corp., which owns a nickel mine in Surigao. In December, SMC signed a memorandum of understanding with Philnico Mining and Industrial Corp. last December on the settlement of Philnico's debt to the government, which had seized the company's mothballed refinery plant in Nonoc because the company failed to pay the full acquisition cost. SMC is planning to invest $2.5 billion to reopen the refinery. — BM, GMA News