Although the majority of the mineral commodities registered a decline in output, the value of the Philippines’ total mineral production during the first three months of 2021 managed to rise by 14.11 percent to P28.91 billion from P25.34 billion during the same period last year.
This was shown in the latest metals’ output data from Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), which attributed the increase in metals’ value to the sustained bullish run of metal prices during the review period.
“It is important to note that despite the disruptions in mining operations brought about by the global pandemic, the mining sector still managed to pull a stellar performance because of the better metal prices which were way higher than their pre-pandemic levels,” MGB said.
However, except for gold and nickel, most of the mineral commodities registered declines including silver, copper, chromite, and iron ore during the period. Iron ore, in particular, had zero production from January to March of this year.
Looking at silver alone, it suffered a 12 percent or 731 kilograms deficit in production volume from 6,335 kilograms to 5,603 kilograms year-on-year.
But in terms of value, such an output was valued higher by 33 percent from P169.67 million to P225.55 million year-on-year.
Meanwhile, in terms of contribution to the total metallic mineral production value, the collective output of nickel ore and other nickel by-products validated their dominance over the other metals with 47.12 percent, or P13.62 billion, input.
In terms of volume, nickel ore also posted significant increases in volume by 48 percent from 2.41 million dry metric tons (DMT) to 3.57 million DMT.
Of the total metals’ value, gold lags behind nickel with 40.49 percent share or P11.71 billion, while copper came in third with 11.51 percent or P3.33 billion.
Gold’s output particularly went up by 3 percent from 4,098 kilograms to 4,212 kilograms, while copper recorded a lower output from 65,538 DMT to 44,050 DMT.
Meanwhile, the consolidated value of silver, chromite and iron ore accounted for less than 1 percent or P250 million of the total production value.
In 2020, the country’s metallic mineral production value ended 2020 on a positive note with a 1.13 percent gain from P130.74 billion in 2019 to P132.21 billion in 2020.
Gold earned the second spot in terms of share with P47.60 billion or 36.00 percent.
Copper, on the other hand, was third accounting for P14.88 billion or 11.25 percent. While the shared value of silver, chromite, and iron amounted to P1.26 billion which was less than 1 percent.