ATN Holdings supplies rocks to build North-South Commuter Railway
MANILA, Philippines — Diversified holding firm ATN Holdings Inc. is supplying crushed rocks for a segment of the proposed North-South Commuter Railway, a foray into the government’s flagship infrastructure program that bodes well for the company’s rebound from the pandemic.
In a disclosure to the stock exchange on Monday, ATN Holdings said the firm started delivering rock aggregates for the first phase of construction of the railway project last September.
Investors cheered the news. On Monday, shares in ATN jumped 13.51% to close at P0.84 each.
“We are thrilled to be in a unique position to seize multiyear continuing opportunities in the bullish infrastructure sector given the massive size of our strategic stockpile and high-quality rock deposits,” Arsenio Ng, company chairman and chief executive, said.
Poised to become the country’s longest rail system once built, the 163-kilometer North-South Commuter Railway Project is expected to slash travel time between Clark and Manila to 1 hour by train from the typical 2 to 3 hours by bus.
Under first of three-phased project, the Tutuban-Malolos portion will be constructed, a 38-km stretch to connect Tutuban, Manila to Malolos, Bulacan and reduce travel time from approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to just 35 minutes. This segment is now 41% complete and targeted to open commercially December 2021.
ATN said the company’s rock-extraction plants with a capacity of 500 tons per hour can meet the project's requirement. To date, the company reported an existing inventory of at least 1 million tons of rock aggregates for future deployment.
“At the moment, ATN is actively engaged in discussions for rock supply arrangements with various public and private proponents committed to large-scale infrastructure development as key to nation building,” the company said.
As government looks toward infrastructure building as strategy for pandemic recovery, ATN is poised to benefit financially. In the June quarter, ATN posted a net loss of P1.59 million, albeit narrower than the P2.6 million in the same period a year ago.
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