DMCI Holdings, Inc. is exploring opportunities for its core businesses, mainly its mining and power units, officials of the Consunji-led firm said on Wednesday.
“We do have a strong stream of feeders for new opportunities and investment. Our core businesses continue to expand organically. Aside from that, at [the parent company level] we continue to look at new verticals that would complement our core businesses,” said DMCI Holdings Deputy Chief Financial Officer Joseph Adelbert V. Legato said during the PSE STAR event.
“We are still expanding out mining and power businesses, but beyond that, we are going up and down the vertical supply chain in order to expand our scope of operations,” Mr. Legato added.
The company expects more coal exploration activities for Semirara Mining and Power Corp. (SMPC) due to the depleting supply of coal in Semirara Island.
“Assuming production of 15 to 16 million metric tons a year, we have enough coal to last until 2027, which is the end of our COC (coal operating contract),” said DMCI Holdings Senior Vice-President for Communications and Investor Relations Cherubim O. Mojica.
“If we get favorable outcome for our COC extension, we are exploring more mining methodologies that will allow us to generate more value from the coal reserves of the island,” Ms. Mojica added.
She said this would mainly depend on exploration activities, which the company would do if the COC extension has been issued.
The company is also expecting sales in China to weaken given economic headwinds in the foreign country. This is after it reported a 75% surge in China shipments for the second quarter to 1.4 million metric tons (MMT) from 0.8 MMT.
“Given the economic trend in China, we don’t expect China sales to remain strong or even improve,” Ms. Mojica said.
For its nickel ore assets through DMCI Mining Corp., the company expects to start operations for two of its nickel facilities in Zambales by December this year and the middle of next year.
“We have five areas undergoing permitting and they are in varying stages of accomplishments,” Ms. Mojica said. “For Palawan, we are expecting to operate by the third quarter next year.”
She added that the remaining two nickel facilities are still in the exploration stage.
For the second quarter, DMCI Holdings posted a 9% decline in attributable net income to P8.24 billion from P9 billion last year.
Its revenues for the period slipped by about 2% to P36.96 billion from P37.7 billion last year, with higher electricity sales offsetting the impact of weaker commodity prices and fewer construction achievements.
On Wednesday, DMCI Holdings went up by 4.49% or 42 centavos to close at P9.78 per share. — Adrian H. Halili