By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net
FOR some people, the prospect of visiting an active mine isn’t that thrilling, especially at the thought of getting stuck in a dark and damp underground shaft. However, it isn’t as boring as it seems. In fact, an active mine is as busy as any industry on the surface. Incidentally, it’s not as dangerous.
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) brought a few reporters to Philex Mines in Tuba, Benguet, one of the country’s busiest active mines. This is one of the few times that outsiders were allowed to go to Philex Mines, situated about an hour and a half away from Baguio City. Only government officials and some geology-related engineering students and experts are allowed into the mine. It should be because the mine produces billions of pesos in copper, as well as silver and gold.
History
Philex Mines was incorporated in 1956 and mining operations started in 1958. It was the first cave operation in the Far East. From the start, the owners of Philex Mines hired locals for the mining operations. During the early years, the area of Tuba was sparsely populated, so the investors looked for laborers from the outer regions. As depicted in Hollywood films, miners used traditional pick axes and trolley trains to transport ore deposits from inside the mountain to the surface where the precious metals are extracted. The ores are actually blasted from solid rock deep within the mountain using dynamite.
As of 2006, the mine has produced 858 million kilograms of copper, 153 million grams of gold and 169 million of silver. This makes Philex Mines one of the most productive and profitable mines in the Philippines.
Growing community
The trip from Baguio City to Philex Mines is long but not totally unpleasant. The only road leaving Baguio City to Philex Mines is already fully paved. Because very few vehicles pass through this road, the air remains fresh and crisp. Only the presence of large four-wheel-drive buses and trucks signal that modernization has already come to this mountain. For the first hour of the trip to the mines, very few houses could be seen beside the road. But just 30 minutes before reaching the mines, several cement buildings, called “bunker houses,” can be seen sprawled along the roads. These serve as living quarters for Philex Mines employees and their families, some of whom are even children of former miners.
Philex hires about 2,500 people with only a few contract workers. And because Philex Mines is remotely enclosed, the employees and their families form a community, complete with the same facilities as others, including sports clubs, schools, cooperative businesses, and even a hostel for visitors.
Into the ground
After a briefing at the mine’s main headquarters, the reporters rode in Toyota 4×4 drive vehicles that took them to just 770 meters above sea level (the top entrance of the mine itself is about 1,400 meters above sea level). The main entrance is a huge gate with two air turbines on top of the doorway that brings fresh air into the mine. For the first two kilometers, the tunnel is dark, lit only by the headlights of the vehicles. That is until we reached the first level of the mine and already it was abuzz with dozens of workers and huge machines. The place is lit by powerful lamps and one could see several tunnels spreading from the center. One of the miners said that the excavation goes as deep as six levels and the total length of the tunnels is about 35 kilometers. He also explained that the cool air is largely because of the location of the tunnels, which are higher than sea-level. If it were below sea level the temperature would have risen from uncomfortable to even boiling point.
Good job
Miners here work in eight-hour shifts. With 2,500 workers, the mines’ operation is continuous, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Not even national holidays could stop operations in the mines, where 25,000 tons of ore are systematically extracted. But while the labor is tedious it is not without its benefits and it’s surprising that miners here earn more than most blue-collar employees aboveground. The basic salary of a miner is more than P400 a day with enviable allowances, including 16th month pay, food allowances, life and accident insurances, free living quarters for their families, and even free use of all sports facilities. Miners who work night shifts will also get a night differential. Incidentally, it seems that time wouldn’t be a problem especially working in a mine where daytime and night time is virtually non-existent.
Of course, danger still lurks in the tunnels, though. Engineer Edgar Prangan, the division manager of Philex Mines, said however that it is mostly caused by failure to comply with safety procedures. Prangan, who is one of the oldest employees of Philex, said accidents are quite rare in the mines and fatalities are even rarer. However, those who do get into serious accidents are well compensated. Some that figure in accidents even go back to work soon after recovering from their injury.
One of the most dangerous areas in the mines is their explosives storage. Explosives are used to dig holes into the bedrock of the mountain so Philex uses powerful dynamite and not just ordinary chemical explosives. Prangan said that even with such powerful explosives, a cave-in is rare as the bed rock is solid, so much so that they sometimes do not even use cement, called shock-crete, or even trusses to secure the walls and ceilings of newly-dug holes to prevent cave-ins.
Heavy equipment
If mining was more pick axe and wheel barrows in the past, today’s mining is heavy machinery. Philex uses a number of equipment to drill, haul and crush ore. Before, miners used a two-man-operated handheld drilling machine to burrow small holes into the ground for placement of explosive devices. Now, the company uses a huge wheeled machine called a rock bolter to quickly drill holes. Instead of requiring hours, the rock bolter can drill a hole within minutes.
One of the odd-looking machines is called a “load-haul-dump,” a flatbed payloader that resembles a crocodile with a gaping mouth. The LHD can carry up to 10 tons of ore to be crushed by a pneumatic hammer, which breaks large chunks of rock into smaller parts. Some of these rocks are brought to a gigantic underground crushing machine, which are then brought up to the surface via a kilometers-long conveyor belt. These rocks are then physically stripped of the copper and gold deposits via “bubbling” wherein bubbles capture the minerals while the dirt (or tailings) sinks to the bottom. Philex extracts about 25 tons of rock from the depths of the mountain and in every ton of ore, about 0.027 percent of copper and another 0.56 grams of gold are extracted. Incidentally, Philex’s main product is copper while gold is just its “waste” material.
At the milling plant about a kilometer from the main tunnel entrance, a conveyor belt churns out grit-like material, which happens to be unrefined copper and silver. A closer look reveals shimmering particles that, according to Prangan, will be shipped to Japan for refining. Every three months, Philex makes four deliveries of about 550 metric tons each to Japan. At the extraction plant, water seeping out of a huge tank was glistening with particles of gold. Prangan said none of the seeping water is wasted and in fact flows into a catch basin where more of the gold and copper are collected.
Environmental concerns
Prangan said one of the issues besetting the country’s mining industry is the alleged environmental damage due to the use of chemicals, particularly mercury, when extracting minerals from ores. Prangan stressed that Philex Mines does not use chemical extraction, instead using mechanical means to extract minerals. While chemical extraction is sometimes employed, he said the level of usage is way below the danger zone. He also stressed that as they bore into the mountains, they fill up used tunnels with cement or rocks to prevent cave-ins, thus protecting the integrity of the mountain.
Prangan said that mining is an important contributor to the country’s economy and the demand for such metals has been increasing in the last few years, largely due to expanded industrialization in China, Korea and Japan. The mining industry also produces jobs for Filipinos especially those close to its base of operations and is also one of the biggest taxpayers.
“Mining is very important. It’s here to stay,” he said.
