LISTED ATN Holdings, Inc. said that it is gearing up to supply more rock aggregates to the 38-kilometer (km) segment of the North-South Commuter Railway, which spans Tutuban, Manila to Malolos, Bulacan, after the company received additional purchase orders for the project, the firm said on Wednesday.
The 148-km railway will connect New Clark City, Pampanga to Calamba, Laguna.
In a regulatory filing, ATN said that it had recently received additional purchase orders for the delivery of rock aggregates for the first phase of the project. It said that it was already serving the railway’s batching requirements in Metro Manila.
“Recently, ATN received additional purchase orders for the delivery of rock aggregates to Bulacan,” the firm said.
BusinessWorld reached out to ATN to clarify the number of additional purchase orders it received, and the updated amount of rock aggregates it would need to supply to the project, but has not yet received a reply as of press time.
In a statement, ATN Chairman and President Arsenio T. Ng said that the firm was simultaneously catering to multiple batching sites for the first phase of the railway.
“By and large, this is a strong testament to the size of our extractable reserves, operational capabilities, and superior product quality. For a project of this magnitude, continuity of premium raw material supply is of critical importance,” he was quoted as saying.
ATN said that the first phase of the railway, which has a contract value of P54 billion, was awarded to the joint venture of contractor D.M. Consunji, Inc. and Japan’s Taisei Corp.
This comes around four months after the firm announced that it was taking part in the first phase of the project, and the rock aggregates it supplied would be used for construction.
Last week, ATN said that it had secured an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) for its 82-hectare integrated aggregates project in Rodriguez, Rizal.
The certificate, which was issued by a unit of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), covered a yearly extraction rate of 7 million dry metric tons of aggregates in the project area.
Based on the DENR’s citizen’s charter, an ECC must be obtained from the department’s Environmental Management Bureau for “environmentally critical” projects.
ATN, which operates rock extraction facilities in Rizal, also has interests in real estate and renewable energy.
ATN shares at the local bourse inched up 1.05% or 0.01 centavos to finish at P0.96 apiece on Wednesday. — Angelica Y. Yang
