Chinese Steel Company Panhua Group Co., Ltd. signed a MoU with the Philippines to build a steel construction plant

On Nov. 20, 2018, Ramon M. Lopez, secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) signed of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the construction of a 305-hectare integrated steel manufacturing plant (known as Panhua Group's Integrated Steel Mill project) between Chairman of Chinese steel company Panhua Group Co., Ltd., Xinghua Li; PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority Chief Executive and Administrator, Franklin M. Quijano; and Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Deputy Director General, Tereso O. Panga. The mill is supposed to be the first integrated steel mill in the Philippines once completed. Under the memorandum, Panhua will build the steel plant through a three-phase project at an investment of $3.5 billion, which will be set up at the PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate of the Misamis Oriental-Special Economic Zone. It will consist of a port, an integrated steel mill with a capacity of 10 million tons, an industrial park, and other downstream industries. The plant would have the capacity to produce 10 million tons of products like steel slabs and galvanized steel annually, to be sold in the domestic market and exported to the European Union, US and Russia. The three-phase project is expected to be completed in six to seven years, with the first phase expected to be completed in only three years. Work on the plant began in 2019, and Panhua has an estimated start-up date of 2022, according to SEAISI. A Philippine trader told Fastmarkets that work was continuing on the plant in early 2020, but new information about the project has been scarce since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. As of August 2021, the mill was reported to be under construction; however details on project implementation are uncertain. Financing details of the project are unknown.

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