SteelAsia Manufacturing Corp., one of the country’s largest privately-held companies, is in talks with the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and transport cooperatives to acquire the steel components from thousands of old jeepneys to be replaced under the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program.
The company, the nation’s biggest producer of reinforcing bars, said it could easily process at least 250,000 metric tons of old jeepney parts into steel products within a few months.
The offer comes amid concerns that the PUV Modernization Program would create a massive stockpile of steel waste. SteelAsia chief operating officer Rafael Hidalgo said, however, steel is infinitely reusable and recyclable.
“We could turn scrap metal into billets, which are the raw material for rebars. It’s part of the circular economy,” Hidalgo told newspaper editors Thursday night.
SteelAsia recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) and Makati Development Corp. (MDC) to supply rebars made from recycled materials as part of the companies’ sustainability efforts.
The company has six manufacturing plants nationwide and plans to open four more by 2027. Its Calaca, Batangas facility manufactures rebars and can produce billets from scrap metal.
Recycled steel accounts for 16 percent of the company’s raw material needs. SteelAsia imports the rest as billets from other countries.
The company also has plants in Meycauayan, Bulacan; Carcar and Compostela in Cebu; Davao City; and Villanueva, Misamis Oriental. It will build facilities in Lemery, Batangas to produce steel beams; a 32-hectare rebar plant in Candelaria, Quezon that could employ 1,500 workers; and a rebar and wire rod plant in Concepcion, Tarlac by 2027.
Hidalgo said the Concepcion plants would provide a local source of wire rods, which can be used to make more than 100 products including nails, screws, bolts, springs and barbed wire.
“It will support the country’s industrialization drive,” he said.
SteelAsia is one of the Philippines’ largest industrial power consumers, with a combined power requirement of 60 megawatts. Hidalgo said 80 percent of the company’s electricity comes from renewable sources.
The company is investing more than P80 billion through 2027 to meet the country’s growing steel demand. The Philippines needs 10 million tons of steel annually, with rebars accounting for half that amount.
While there are 60 steel manufacturers in the Philippines, SteelAsia controls more than half of the rebar market. The company has an annual production capacity of 3 million tons.
SteelAsia supplies about 80 percent of the rebar needed for land, air, sea, power and communications infrastructure. It is also the preferred supplier of the country’s largest contractors and property developers.
The company employs more than 2,600 workers and reported P42.5 billion in net revenue in 2021.
The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and Philippine Business Bank (PBB) earlier provided an P8.3-billion loan to SteelAsia to complete its P18-billion steel section mill in Lemery.
