July 23 (Reuters) – Freeport-McMoRan beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit on Thursday, as higher copper prices offset lower production at its Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
Shares of the company were up 1.4% in premarket trading.
Average copper prices climbed 41.5% year-on-year in the second quarter, driven by supply concerns, signs of resilient demand from top consumer China and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
Quarterly average realized price for copper was $6.17 per pound, compared with $4.54 per pound a year earlier.
Phoenix, Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan had suspended operations at Indonesia’s Grasberg mine after around 800,000 metric tons of wet material flooded the site on September 8.
Earlier this year, PT Freeport Indonesia said recovery at Grasberg, the world’s second-largest copper mine and largest gold mine, is taking longer than expected, but operations should approach full capacity by the end of 2027.
The complex, majority-owned by the Indonesian company and operated by Freeport, is now running at 50% of capacity and is expected to reach 65% later this year.
Freeport’s copper production fell 18.2% to 786 million pounds in the second quarter, while gold production fell 39.4% to 192,000 ounces.
The miner’s second-quarter copper sales, excluding purchases, were 710 million recoverable pounds, compared with 1 billion recoverable pounds a year earlier, while gold sales came in at 123,000 ounces, down 76% from a year-ago period.
The world’s largest publicly traded copper producer reported an adjusted profit of 74 cents per share for the three months ended June 30, compared with analysts’ average estimate of 59 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG.
(Reporting by Pranav Mathur in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Leroy Leo)
