Commodities
Villar Group Invests Billions in Philippine Copper-Gold Project
The Villar-led Kingking Mining Corp. (KMC) is finally proceeding with its P307.8-billion copper-gold project in Davao de Oro, one of the country's big-ticket mining projects.
KMC plans to invest $5.13 billion in the expansion of the project, leveraging the area's direct shipping access to major copper markets in Southeast Asia.
The planned investment is over 248% higher than the initial investment cost of P88.47 billion, according to KMC's regulatory filing.
KMC secured the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) for the Kingking project in 2015 and the mineral processing permit in 2016 but was constrained by regulatory restrictions and operational disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic from 2020 to 2022.