TUBA, Benguet – The prevailing high world metal prices is greatly helping in sustaining the operations and could possibly contribute in further extending the mine life of the Philex Mining Corporation-Padcal, a top company executive said here Sunday.
Philex president and chief executive officer Engr. Eulalio B. Austin, Jr. said that the company was able to survive the challenges of 2024 with the stable world metal prices that allowed Philex to work on the low grade ore being mined from the peripheries of the ore body.
He admitted that the company was not able to achieve its target production over the past three years that indicates that its operations is now on the crossroads where management has to choose the direction to take.
Earlier, Philex declared the extension of its mine life from 2027 to 2028 based on existing estimates of production and the prevailing high world metal prices.
“We should be one in the direction that we are taking and believe that the things that we agreed upon to recover can be done. If we ourselves cannot believe that we could recover from this sad state of production, it will be a major social concern,” Austin stressed.
He requested the entire Philex workforce to exert extra efforts as the road to recovery entails a lot of sacrifices.
The Philex official also appealed to the millennials and the generations X and Y to help in this cause because they compromise the bulk of the company’s workforce.
“We acknowledge the gap in the working culture between the baby boomers and the millennials and generations X and Y and we have to face that challenge,” he said.
According to him, work attendance must be improved, including maximization of working times which are very critical in improving the company’s production.
He assured that workers in the company that ,because of the working culture that they have developed over the years, they will always have an opportunity in Philex’s other projects.
Austin announced that the company’s Silangan gold and copper mining project in Surigao del Norte had made tremendous progress as the access tunnel already reached the ore body.
Further, the Silangan tailings storage facility is expected to be completed by the second quarter of this year and the mill plant construction is ongoing.
He said that the mill plant will be operational by the end of this year and commercial operation of the project will be by the first quarter of next year.
Austin argued that while Silangan is the company’s priority right now, the survival of Padcal mine will share equal attention.
He asserted that it is not even the survival of Philex’s Padcal mine that the company is looking at but also it is looking for the extension of mine life beyond 2028.
He claimed that the company is relentless in looking for mining opportunities in Luzon as Philex values its workforce.
“We hold our own destiny. Our faith is in our hands,” he exclaimed. By Dexter A. See