Global Ferronickel Holdings Inc. said operating unit Platinum Group Metals Corp. received a contract from Baosteel Resources International Co. Ltd. to supply one million wet metric ton of nickel ore at market price in 2020.
GNFI said in a disclosure to the stock exchange the supply would consist of 50 percent low-grade and 50 percent medium- to high-grade nickel ore to be secured from PGMC’s Cagdianao nickel expansion project in Surigao del Norte province.
Delivery is expected at the onset of the dry season in April 2020.
Baosteel Resources is a wholly-owned subsidiary of leading Chinese steel manufacturer China Baowu Steel Group.
The company is mainly engaged in mineral resource investment, trading and logistics. It specializes in the trading of metallurgic raw materials, with over 60 million tons being shipped annually.
Its product ranges are iron, ore, coal, alloys, non-ferrous metals, ferrous scraps, metallurgical flux and the like. Baosteel Resources to date has over 100 suppliers and 40 clients overseas.
With headquarters in Hong Kong, it has strategic footprints in Southeast Asia and the Pacific as well as in some parts of Africa.
GFNI, meanwhile, is the second largest nickel ore exporter in the Philippines.
GFNI saw its net income increase by 35 percent to P805 million in the first nine months of the year from P595 million year-on-year.
Revenues rose 5.4 percent to P4.79 billion from P4.54 billion on year due to higher average nickel prices.
The average realized price of nickel ore sold in the first nine months continued to improve at US$19.88/WMT, up 9.3 percent a year ago.
“We are counting on the price of nickel to continue its upward momentum, especially with the Indonesian government’s recent decision to ban the export of nickel ore from next year,” said GFNI president Dante Bravo said.
Share price of GFNI on Wednesday rose 5 percent to P1.90.