By Jonathan L. Mayuga | Business Mirror | September 7, 2021

An offshore mining firm is seeking to extract magnetite sand in the Lingayen Gulf covering five coastal towns in the Province of Pangasinan.

Iron Ore, Gold, and Vanadium Resources (Phils.) Inc.’s proposed Iron Ore Pangasinan Offshore Magnetite Mining Project in the municipalities of Sual, Labrador, Lingayen, Binmaley and City of Dagupan, is an environmentally critical project (ECP) that involves the massive extraction of metallic and non-metallic minerals, including extraction of oil and gas, the BusinessMirror learned.

The company is eyeing to extract magnetite, also known as black sand, a total of 9,252.4506 hectares in the next 33 years at an annual extraction rate of 25,000,000 dry metric tons.

The company is seeking an environmental compliance certificate from the DENR, which has scheduled the public scoping for the project via Zoom from September 13 to September 21, 2021.

The Zoom Meeting link and the schedule of the public scoping per municipality are listed below:

Meeting ID: 833 5348 8226
Passcode: Pangasinan

• 13 September 2021, Monday, 9:30 a.m., Municipality of Labrador
• 14 September 2021, Tuesday, 9:30 a.m., Municipality of Lingayen
• 15 September 2021, Wednesday, 9:30 a.m., Municipality of Sual
• 15 September 2021, Wednesday, 2:00 p.m., Government Agencies
• 16 September 2021, Thursday, 9:30 a.m., Municipality of Binmaley
• 17 September 2021, Friday, 9:30 a.m., City of Dagupan

The application for an ECC is part of the conduct of an Environmental Impact Assessment Study in compliance with the guidelines of the Philippine Environmental Impact Statement Systems or the PEISS.

The company claimed that the project is covered by Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) No. 07-2020-IOMR approved by the Office of the President on November 25, 2020.

The agreement between the government and Vanadium Resources grants the company exclusive rights to conduct mining operations for the extraction of magnetite sand in the area.

The proposed project aims to utilize the untapped magnetite deposits in the offshore areas of Lingayen Gulf, which the company said, would contribute to the local and national economic development through magnetite sand production and supply.

It also promised to generate employment and marketable mineral products that will generate revenues and associated taxes in favor of the government.

In addition, the company promised social and environmental to provide benefits to the host and local communities.

In its proposal, the company shall consider the extraction of magnetite starting only within mine operational area from a distance of 4 kilometers away from shoreline located at Lingayen Gulf, Pangasinan to prevent or minimize the negative impact of disturbed sand on the quality of water that was traditionally used by the people for fishing.

“The extraction for magnetite sand will simply utilize a siphon vessel or an Extraction Platform. The extracted sand will then be temporarily stored, dewatered, and separated from the non-magnetic sands on board barges. All the processes for extraction will be strictly mechanical, no chemicals will be used. In addition, all phases of the operation, from the extraction up to the magnetic separation, will be done offshore. The process is smaller in scale compared to the extraction methods to be used inland,” the company said.

According to the company, considering the project area coverage and based on other magnetite offshore deposits in the country, the potential magnetite resource at an assumed average thickness of 10 meters could be 1 billion cubic meters or 1.69 billion metric tons at 1.69 specific gravity of the materials.

“If this will be confirmed by the exploration activities to be implemented, the mine life at an extraction rate of 5 million tons per year will be about 33 years,” it said.

Currently, there are no current estimates of mineral resource in the area as the project has not yet started the exploration activities.

However, the company stated that the Lingayen Gulf is a geologic structure that serves as the repository of sediments and minerals coming from the rivers that transport eroded materials from the highlands of the Cordillera Mountain ranges.

“As such, it is a geologically favorable environment for hosting sedimentary deposits that can be extracted profitably based on prevailing economic and market conditions for such minerals. There is a high likelihood that such economic deposits now exist in the area due to the increasing trend of the global demand for iron and steel,” the company said.

Source: Business Mirror