Nickel industry wants reliable supply chain

The Philippine Nickel Industry Association (PNIA) has cited the need  for continued improvements in permitting efficiency, regulatory predictability, and investment competitiveness, noting the necessity of moving towards downstream processing.

This  will require investments to expand the Philippines’ presence in the higher-value segments of the critical minerals supply chain.

The group noted that potential Indonesian supply disruptions are reinforcing the need for a more diversified and resilient global critical minerals supply chain.

PNIA President Dante R. Bravo said Indonesia’s yearly decision on nickel quotas reinforces the point that nickel users cannot rely too heavily on one country alone.

“The Philippines has consistently supplied the region through every cycle, through quota tightening, through quota easing, through pandemic disruption. That consistency is not an accident,”  Bravo said in a statement issued by the PNIA.

“It is the foundation that the Philippines now offers the region as it builds a more resilient, diversified critical minerals supply chain,” he added.

Bravo noted that Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries have the geology, labor, capital, partnerships, technology, and market to avert the concentration of the nickel supply on any one country.

He added that the PNIA continues to work with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Anti-Red Tape Authority, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Energy, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, the Department of Finance, and the Department of Science and Technology to improve the Philippine permitting system.

“We have the ore. We have growing interest from processing investors. What stands between the Philippines and a much larger role in the global battery and stainless steel supply chain is the speed and predictability of our own permitting system,” Bravo said.

The PNIA noted that broader cooperation within ASEAN and ongoing efforts to strengthen partnerships with countries like Canada would help diversify markets, attract investment, and reinforce ASEAN’s supplier role in the global energy transition.

“A Philippines-Canada FTA (free trade agreement), alongside a broader ASEAN-Canada agreement, would give global manufacturers and battery producers a genuine, rules-based alternative sourcing option, one grounded in ASEAN supply, not concentrated in any single country,” he said.

“The timing of these negotiations, alongside the recalibration of nickel supply policy across the region, is not a coincidence. It reflects a broader shift toward diversified, trusted sourcing of critical minerals,” he added.

The PNIA also called for closer regional cooperation among critical mineral producers in ASEAN to strengthen supply chain resilience, promote responsible mining standards, and enhance ASEAN’s collective competitiveness.