The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp.’s (ACMDC) Cebu unit Carmen Copper Corp. (CCC), engaged in copper mining copper and exporting, said in will lay off 551 employees, equivalent to 15 percent of its workforce, as part of cost reduction due to the depressed prices of copper in the global market.
Carmen Copper would undertake a restructuring plan to streamline operations intended to ensure long-term viability of the firm, as copper prices recorded six-year lows in 2015, CCC said in an official statement.
“The company does not anticipate these conditions to change in the near term. Across the world, many copper mines have closed down completely faced with industry-wide low prices. CCC however will continue to operate on scaled-back operations until market conditions improve,” CCC President Enrico Nera said.
Nera also said that the comprehensive plan for the restructuring would entail the production levels being scaled back to 40,000 tons per day.
The plan calls for mine site pre-stripping being reduced for 2016 and 2017, as well as reducing the capital expenditure levels to focus on keeping the mine going.
“The management of CCC has worked closely with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the labor unions involved in this who understand and are supportive of the broad plan. All employees are being treated fairly and given due terms. The company has a long term interest in the mine and the community of Toledo,” CCC said in a statement.
“In the longer term, once copper prices increase, CCC will be able to resume higher production volumes and hire more employees at the mine. The company intends to source employment first from the community of Toledo, similar to what it did in 2007 when it opened the Lutopan mine,” Nera said.
“This situation is regrettable but we are working to ensure the viability of the mine for the long term,” he added.
Carmen Copper engaged in metallic mining and mineral exploration and development. CCC, as the operator of the Company’s copper mines in the city of Toledo, Cebu (the Toledo Copper Mine), primarily produces and exports copper metal in concentrate, and gold and silver as the principal byproducts.
CCC is also pursuing the development and commercial production of other marketable by-products such as pyrite, magnetite and molybdenum. CCC exports all of the copper it produces.
Since the resumption of commercial mining operations in Toledo in 2008, CCC has been shipping its copper to smelters in China and South Korea, pursuant to its offtake agreements with MRI Trading AG (MRI).
In 2013, it began delivering copper concentrate to the plant of the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corporation in Leyte, Ocean Partners UK Ltd., and to smelters in Japan by virtue of an offtake contract with Mitsui & Co. Ltd. In 2014, a substantial portion of CCC’s copper production was covered by offtake contracts with MRI, although CCC is not dependent on upon a single counterparty. RIZA LOZADA