Background: The Philippines is located in the center of Asia and has historically been the center of regional and global trade. Compared with other old ASEAN members, the Philippines is relatively backward in infrastructure.
However, with the continuous promotion of Belt & Road Initiatives and Economic Globalization, the Philippines has been increasing its investment in infrastructure in recent years.
Sand and gravel resources have been one of the outstanding advantages of the Philippines compared with other Southeast Asian countries. And since 2017, the sand and gravel prices in the Philippines have kept rising, and sand and gravel industry has become one of the most promising industries in the Philippines.
A potential market for sand and gravel in the Philippines
Sand and gravel market demand in the Philippines
The Philippines, ASEAN's fastest-growing major economy, has underinvested in infrastructure for years. To turn this around, Duterte has made infrastructure development a top policy commitment since taking office in June 2016.
On April 18, 2017, the Philippine government announced the official launch of a large-scale infrastructure investment program called "Build, Build, Build", known as "the boldest and most ambitious infrastructure construction plan in the Philippines History". In addition, the construction of personal housing in the Philippines is also in full swing.
The urgent demand for sand and gravel in the Philippines
According to Duterte's idea, infrastructure can not only improve the productivity of economy and create jobs, but also increase income and ultimately reduce poverty. And the government aims to spend between 8 trillion and 9 trillion Philippine pesos (about $180 billion) on public infrastructure between 2017 and 2022.
It means that in recent years and for a long time to come, the demand for sand and gravel aggregates in the Philippines has been remaining high and growing.
Sand and gravel prices and profits analysis
The main products of rocks and stones processing in the Philippines are building sand and gravel.
The specifications of building stones mainly include continuous grading and single grading products of 0-5 mm, 5-10 mm, 10-31.5 mm, and 31.5-60 mm.
Main specifications of sand and gravel
With the implementation of the infrastructure construction policy, the price of sand and gravel aggregate has been rising continuously in recent two years. According to the statistics, the prices of various common sand in 2019 has doubled than prices in 2018, so the investment of sand aggregate is promising:
Sand and gravel price list in the Philippines
| Material Description | Unit | Ave. Price in 2019 (Php) | Ave. Price in 2018 (Php) |
| Gravel G1 | cu.m. | 1039.23 | 500.00 |
| Gravel G2 | cu.m. | 896.00 | 410.00 |
| Gravel GI-1/2" | cu.m. | 875.87 | 425.00 |
| Gravel G2-1/2" | cu.m. | 889.64 | 410.00 |
| Gravel 1/2" | cu.m. | 893.69 | 418.00 |
| Gravel 3/4" | cu.m. | 899.10 | 430.00 |
| Gravel 3/8" | cu.m. | 936.37 | 450.00 |
| Fine Aggregate | cu.m. | 919.00 | 460.00 |
| Natural Gravel | cu.m. | 859.54 | 540.00 |
Data from: https://philconprices.com/
If the current gravel market price in the Philippines is 1,000 Philippine pesos per ton (1 cubic gravel in the Philippines is 1,500 Philippines peso), and taking a river stone crushing production line with a capacity of 100 tons of sand and gravel as an example, we can make the following price analysis:
| Capacity / Year | Raw materials costs | Gross profit | Equipment investment | Labor charges |
| 660,000t/y | It depends | 660,000,000 Peso / $ 12,955,800 | 2,200,000-3,000,000Peso/ $ 44,000 to $58,000 | It depends |
Broad sand and gravel investment prospects in the Philippines
Rich natural resources: Due to abundant raw materials such as river stones and boulders in the Philippine, it can be taken locally. Therefore, investors' investment in sand raw materials is almost 0.
According to the above table, a river stone sand production line with a capacity of 100 tons per hour is profitable greatly, so are the other gravel production lines with different capacities. Therefore, the investment prospects of the sand and gravel production line are broad, and investors can rest assured that they can invest.
Broad sand and gravel investment prospects in the Philippines
Strong support from the government: In addition, due to the implementation of the "Build, Build, Build" program in the Philippines, the government fully supports the sand making industry. Therefore, under the impetus of enterprises and the government's policy on sand and gravel aggregate industry, the Philippine sand and gravel industry is gradually becoming intensive, large-scale, high-efficiency and comprehensive utilization of resources, which not only meets the demand for sand and gravel aggregates in the Philippines, but realizes the orderly mining of sand and gravel aggregates, achieving the double win situation of the aggregate of sand and gravel industry!
Outstanding advantages of the Philippines' sand and gravel
Abundant raw materials of sand and gravel
The Philippines is made up of 7,107 islands, each with many hills and only a large plain in central Luzon. There are more than 200 volcanoes in the country, including 21 active volcanoes.
The unique geographical advantage has brought enough natural rock resources to the Philippines, and the coastal areas have formed a large number of high-quality river stones, boulders, and gravel.
The stones such as River stones are silicate minerals with characteristics of hard texture, wear resistance and chemical stability. Therefore, natural sand-making resources, mainly river pebbles, can bring a broad market and rich profits, and also make the investment prospect of artificial sand in the Philippines broader and broader.
Riverstones for sand making
High-qualified sand and gravel products
The artificial sand can effectively and stably control the technical indexes of sand particles according to national standards and engineering quality requirements, and meet the engineering technical requirements.
The particle size and fineness modulus of the artificial sand can be adjusted according to the needs of the project and combined with the good point of the raw materials and the requirements of the concrete.
The shape of the sand particles is multi-angled and the surface is rough, which is helpful to bond with cement and other cementitious materials and to the improvement of concrete strength.
The artificial sand production can be combined with the crushing stone production process, which is beneficial to the comprehensive utilization of the mineral source and reduce pollution, thus greatly reducing the production cost of the artificial sand.
Sand and gravel can be processed easily
Due to the rich resources of the Philippines, its geographical advantages and the characteristics of the raw materials themselves, the crushing and sand-making processes can be easily configured to meet the requirements of the fieldwork.
Simple configuration of sand and gravel production line
Sand production line is a special production line for building materials, used to produce sand and other materials.
The sandstone production line has advantages of a high degree of automation, high production efficiency, low operating cost, large output, high yield, high breaking rate, and energy-saving; the finished stone has uniform particle size and good granular shape, which could meet the national high-speed material standard.
With crushing equipment such as jaw crusher, cone crusher and sand making equipment, Philippine river pebbles can be processed to meet the building material requirements.
The finished product has even particle size and high compressive strength, which is more suitable for construction than the natural sand grains and sand produced by ordinary hammer type sand making machine and can greatly improve the construction quality.
Sand and gravel production process
The rich mineral resources in the Philippines have brought huge opportunities not only for artificial sand, but also for crushed stones and sand making machine.
Based on the principle of comprehensive utilization of resources and adapting to local conditions, we use river stones as raw material for processing artificial sand to introduce the process and technology of river stone sand and gravel making line.
Design of sand making line
According to the characteristics of the river pebble, the process is designed to be three-stage crushing, that is, primary crushing, medium crushing, and sand making. The first crushing is for road building production; the second crushing process and sand making process are combined with the matching screening to form a closed-loop production process to meet the needs of concrete aggregates of various grade ratios.
Equipment used for crushing and sand-making includes vibrating feeder, jaw crusher, impact crusher(for soft ores like limestone) or cone crusher(for hard ores like river stones), sand making machine, vibrating screen, sand washing machine.
Main equipment and configuration - taking 100-120 tons/h of river stone crushing line as an example:
| Equipment | Specification | Quantity | Remarks |
| Vibrating feeder | ZSW380×95 | 1 | With sieving |
| Jaw crusher | PE600×750 | 1 | Primary crushing |
| Vibrating screen | 3YK1854 | 1 | Into cone crusher for pre-sizing |
| Cone crusher | PSG900 | 1 | Secondary crushing |
| Sand maker | HX-10 | 1 | Sand making |
| Conveyor | B500×15m | 3 | Transporting material |
Introduction of sand and gravel production line
The river stones are uniformly sent to the PE600×750 jaw crusher by the vibrating feeder for coarse crushing into 65-160mm size. And then the coarsely crushed material is sent to the PSG900 cone crusher by the belt conveyor for secondary crushing into 13-38mm, then is fed into the sand maker for further crushing.
The finely crushed material is sent to the vibrating screen. The material that meets the particle size requirements is sent to the sand washing machine for cleaning and then transported by conveyor belt; the material that does not meet the requirements of the finished grain size is returned into the sand maker to form a closed loop for multiple crushing.
Sand and gravel making process
Finished product granularity can be combined and graded according to users' needs. In the production process, it can be equipped with a coarse and fine powder separator and a dust removal device.
The finished sand is transported to the finished product warehouse via a belt, and the stone powder can be transported into the powder store through the hoister. The finished sand is discharged from the bottom of the sand storage tank through the arc valve into the belt and transported to the sand distribution warehouse. After the water spray treatment, the finished product is delivered, and the stone powder can be delivered through the cement bulk equipment.
Conclusion
At present, the infrastructure construction in the Philippines is in the ascendant, and the demand for sand aggregate is still high and increasing, which brings huge business opportunities for investors.
Meanwhile, the Philippine government is pushing ahead with its infrastructure plans, with the President signing a record 4.1 trillion pesos this year on 6 January 2020 to upgrade aging airports, seaports, roads and railways for a "golden age" of infrastructure.
As a result, the Philippines is expected to remain a hot spot for infrastructure investment in the coming years. For the development of a relatively weak infrastructure industry, investors who focuses on this area must get a good harvest.
