Earnings Labs

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX)

Q2 2013 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 23, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Kathleen Quirk, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Kathleen L. Quirk

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Freeport-McMoRan Second Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. We're pleased to be here today to report our first quarter of results following our oil and gas acquisitions, which were consummated in the second quarter. Our results were released earlier this morning, and a copy of the press release is available on our website at fcx.com. Our conference call today is being broadcast live on the Internet, and anyone may listen to the call by accessing our website home page and clicking on the webcast link for the conference call. As usual, we have several slides to supplement our comments this morning, and we'll be referring to the slides during the call. They're also accessible using our webcast link on fcx.com. In addition to analysts and investors, the financial press has been invited to listen to today's call, and a replay of the webcast will be available on our website later today. Before we begin our comments, we'd like to remind everyone that today's press release and certain of our comments on this call include forward-looking statements. We'd like to refer everyone to the cautionary language included in the press release and presentation materials and to the risk factors described in our SEC filings. On the call today is our Chairman of the Board, Jim Bob Moffett; Richard Adkerson, Vice Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jim Flores, Vice Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of our Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas subsidiary; and we've got a number of other executives with us today who will be available to answer any questions. I'll start by briefly summarizing the financial results, and then turn the call over to Richard, and he'll be reviewing performance and outlook, as well as Jim Bob and Jim Flores. As…

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Cowen and Company

Thanks, Kathleen. The -- obviously, a very active quarter for us. We've got a lot to talk about today with the Oil & Gas acquisitions of McMoRan and PXP. We're going to focus on the strong margins, cash flows, near-term and long-term growth opportunities that we have from these assets and how that complements the outlook for our mining business going forward. You will see that we really had strong operating performance in North America, South America and in Africa, and we will be focusing on that. Our results were significantly affected, of course, by this tragic accident that we had on May 14 in our PTF operations in Papua. And we had significantly lower volumes of copper and gold as a result of that. And also, we were impacted by the fact that our -- a lot of our costs are fixed and continued during the period we were shut down. After a period of grief and attention to the families and to our workforce and into the community as a result of the loss of life in this accident, we worked on safety procedures in coordination with the government and returned to operations in the open pit in the mill in June 24, roughly 6 weeks after the accident and began underground mining operations on July 9, almost 2 months later. And so that had an impact, and we want to make sure you understand what that meaned. We did advance our development projects in the mining business at Tenke, Morenci, at Cerro Verde, Grasberg underground development. We progressed with the Lucius development in our Oil & Gas business, major discovery that's looking to come onstream in the near term. We did have a $1 a share supplemental dividend paid on July 1 that was in conjunction with completing the mergers to go along with our regular $1.25 annual dividend. Kathleen mentioned this, but you'll hear more about it today, about our commitment to achieve our debt reduction targets. Even with lower commodity prices, which we had a lot of volatility during the second quarter and lower prices at the end of the quarter, uncertainty about the future with the impact of the Grasberg deferral of operations, with changes in plans, we have a set of assets that's going to allow us to achieve this targeted debt reduction, and you'll be hearing about our commitment to do that. Before we get into the specifics on these matters, I'm going to turn the mic over for Jim Bob to make some comments.

James R. Moffett

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research

Good morning. Our annual shareholders meeting, I thought you'd like to know that 15 of our directors nominated were elected, we've had the ratification of Ernst & Young, but advisory vote on say-on-pay did not receive a majority vote. Obviously, the board will continue to consider the shareholder feedback. We've been working with our [indiscernible] people and we look [indiscernible] and rewards discussed a new shareholder feedback. But suffice it to say, we'll make sure that we'll pay you competitive and timely shareholder return. The shareholder proposal advisory vote on independent Chairman received a majority of votes cast. And what this means is that the independent directors will consider how we deal with this. I should mention that the independent members of our board have already appointed Gerald Ford to the newly created position of Lead Independent Director. And we haven't had an independent director like we've elected, which should have been serving our board members. Gerald has been chosen by the board. He has an impeccable reputation in the finance community. Our board has been totally aware of our management goals and the board goals. So I think that we've addressed this, this advisory vote of independent chairman. The board believes this structure is in the best interest of the shareholders and addresses this so-called nonbinding advisory proposal. The bylaw amendment on shareholder right to call a special meeting with 15% received the majority of the votes cast. I won't spend any time on that, but you'll find that in our bylaws that in the state of Delaware, the 15% ownership adds several things that are appreciative and we'll get into that when the time comes. The environmental director and the board diversity did not receive a majority of the votes cast. On the recent performance, on the next…

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Cowen and Company

Thanks, Jim Bob. On the financial highlights page on Page 8, I'm not going to repeat what Kathleen reviewed with you at the start of the call, but I wanted to just point out the impact of the suspension of operations of PT-FI. You see that our volumes of 950 million pounds of copper, they were roughly -- that reflected the impact of having 125 million pounds of less production. With gold of 173, we had 125 million ounces less production of gold. So that is really what drove the shortfall in our performance, together with this factor that I mentioned that many of our costs at PT-FI are fixed. Now that works for us in a very positive way as volumes increase because we don't have increased costs that's commensurate with our prices. But it also had an effect this quarter of having our unit costs higher because of the fixed nature of our cost. This is further shown on Page 9. You can see in North America, in South America, in Africa, where we have our unit cost at the top of the page and our volumes at the bottom of the page, that those operations really performed strongly, both in terms of having a production achievement of our targets, our goals and control of our cost in today's environment. The numbers speak for themselves. The impact in Indonesia saw our unit costs rise significantly as a result of the lower volumes and the fixed nature of our cost. The Oil & Gas operations, and Jim will talk more to this in a few minutes, are presented in summary on Page 10. This only reflects 1 month of operations. We'll account for the Oil & Gas acquisitions prospectively going forward. It was only from June in this particular…

James C. Flores

Analyst · Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank

Good morning. Thank you, Richard. Looking at the Oil & Gas development activities first. We have several large areas, California, Eagle Ford Deepwater, Haynesville and also, the ultra-deep completions we'll talk about. In California, it's been a tremendous asset on the Oil & Gas business for a long period of time. The fields were discovered 100 years ago that they're producing at high rates and high margins for a long period of time. A lot of people don't realize that California's the third most productive state in the country, and it's got a tremendous oil and gas business. And the big thing it has for our company is a lot of free cash flow from a standpoint of very low maintenance capital to keep very high flow rates, and obviously, with our strong pricing, gives us big margins, as Richard highlighted earlier in his presentation. California will continue to get its ample amount of capital to maintain that production and look forward to a stable base going forward. The Eagle Ford is one of our newer assets. It's been developed in the last 5 years. It's had a tremendous growth rate because of the rig activity as we expanded from 2 to over 8 rigs over a period. We're now reducing that rig fleet and in the large cash flows out of our high oil price at LLS pricing in our Eastern Eagle Ford. We're in the premium position of the play called the heart of the watermill, we're in the Graven [ph] sequence that's got the thick ore-bearing part of the shale. And our wells continue to produce several thousand barrels a day as they come on. The near-term cash flow expansion will come at the peril of our rig count there. We'll be reducing our rig count going…

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Cowen and Company

Thanks, Jim. Let's go to Slide 20, and we'll update our outlook for the year. Our current sales outlook is for 4.1 billion pounds of copper. That reflects roughly 200 million pounds lower than we were in the first quarter for the reasons we talked about at Grasberg. Gold at 1.1 million ounces, molybdenum at 92 million pounds, oil at 35 million barrels equivalent, that's 65% oil. For those -- I know some of you are very familiar with oil and gas business and others less so, be careful with these barrels of equivalent. Because of tradition and some SEC rules, oil and gas is equated at 6:1 even though gas is selling today at $3.60 and oil at $110 a barrel. 65% of these equivalent barrels are oil, but oil represents over 90% or roughly 90% of the revenues. Unit costs are projected at $1,300 gold at $1.58 a pound, $19 per barrels of equivalent. Operating cash flows, we're now looking at $3.15 copper at being at $5.8 billion. Each $0.10 change in copper for the remainder of the year represents roughly $200 million. And capital expenditures of $5.5 billion, which is -- includes $4.4 billion from the mining business and $1.5 billion from the Oil & Gas business. Our production profile, as we look forward through the -- for the end of the year and into 2015, shows our growth from completing our copper expansion projects, going from the 4 billion pound level to 5 billion pound level. The gold sales reflects the recovery of Grasberg and the access to higher-grade ore because of our mine sequencing. Molybdenum sales reflect the operations of our byproduct from our copper mines, as well as Henderson and Climax. And the Oil & Gas sales outlook reflects the growth that Jim reviewed…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Tony Rizzuto with Cowen and Company.

Anthony B. Rizzuto - Cowen Securities LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Cowen and Company

I was very happy to see some spending restraint. But I'm a bit surprised to see a little bit -- not to see, a little bit slower approach at Cerro Verde. And I was wondering if you just go through the thought process again and elaborate a little bit as to why that project, why it's basically not touched here in terms of a little bit slower approach going forward.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Cowen and Company

Yes, Tony. Tony raises a good point, just so everyone's aware of it. We have this project at Cerro Verde that we've been working on now for a number of years. We suspended it in '08, '09, started in earnest in 2010. We own the rights to this resource because of our existing operations. So it is a project that, from an ownership standpoint, would not be affected if we decided to defer it. And that is an option for us going forward. There are several factors that lead us to want to continue with this project so long as we can achieve our balance sheet management through other means. One of those has to do with the very positive relationships that we've developed with the local community and with the central government in Peru. As all of you -- all of the mining industry know, that's really unusual for major projects in Peru, where there gets to be competition often around water rights, often around community issues, and there's opposition in many cases and controversy with projects. Our team has done a great job in positioning this project to date where we haven't had those issues. We've worked with the city of Arequipa, the nearby city of Arequipa, second-largest city in Peru, where we've developed a positive deal by providing that city of 1 million-plus people with freshwater system. We're accessing water for our expansion through a wastewater collection and processing system, where previously the city was just dumping wastewater into the river. Now it will be collected, treated and we'll have access to water. We have negotiated a new financial tax royalty stability agreement that's in place. A deferral would result in us having to give up that stability agreement and go back at some future date to deal with it. So there's obviously also cost to mobilization -- demobilization. You add all of that up, and with the other alternatives that we have of achieving our goals for this debt reduction, and also in view of our long-term positive view about the copper market, we are currently have our plans of continuing that project but noting that it is an alternative available to us if market conditions are such that we need to act on it.

Anthony B. Rizzuto - Cowen Securities LLC, Research Division

Analyst · Cowen and Company

All right, Richard. And if I could just have a follow-up. So the timing of the underground development in Indonesia, has that been pushed out a little bit because of the unfortunate incident there? And just to follow up there and -- how is that going to affect -- you're talking about the transition to 100% underground in kind of that 2016, 2017 timeframe. How should we think about that now?

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Cowen and Company

Well, the -- our work in the underground development was interrupted for a period of time as a result of the accident. This is one area of our operations that throughout the strike and the labor issues of 2011, 2012, progressed very well. We have a great underground development team that Mark leads and our guys on the ground lead. And that was really -- that project was really, in many ways, going ahead of schedule for us. And so while this does represent a period of time where we had to divert attention away from it and we suspended operations, we don't feel that we are significantly off schedule for meeting our targets. Now as we get down to the last period of time of mining in the pit and so forth, there's likely to be changes as we try look for ways of maximizing the ore body. But at this point, we feel we'll be prepared to transition to underground when the time is right for just for information purposes. I know, Tony, you're well familiar with this. We've been mining -- we've been block caving since the early 1980s at Grasberg in a successful way. In our current full operating mode there, the underground operations provide more than 1/3 of the throughput to our mill and through our DOZ mine. We are also expanding that ore body at depth with a Deep MLZ zone, which is scheduled really to start in 2015. And so all of that gives us a lot of confidence in our ability to make this transition in an effective way. And we're going to be prepared for it. Mark, do you have...

Mark J. Johnson

Analyst · Cowen and Company

That's correct. We still show Deep MLZ starting up in early 2015. The Grasberg Block Cave is still on schedule to be ready for us at the end of the pit. We did have some float in the schedule between the end of the pit and the start of the block cave, about 6 months. As Richard said, prior to this incident, we were exceeding our development meters. Our -- as we got the okay to start back up in those work areas, we really picked up without any issue. So we're optimistic that we'll be ready for those projects to start up on time.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Cowen and Company

And I'll just point everybody to Slide 42 in your reference slides, which gives you a schedule of how this fits together.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank.

Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank

It's Jorge with DB. Just a quick question, maybe this is for Jim Flores. I wanted to understand the last guidance that was published before the deal was consummated was from December, and that showed about an oil and gas equivalent graph there showing 78 million barrels of oil equivalent for 2014 and 94 million for 2015. Those numbers have been pared back significantly to an average of roughly 60 million for both of those years. I do understand that some of this maybe just dropping out the ultra-deep stuff. But even on an apples-to-apples basis, it would seem that you're cutting your implied BOE guidance there by about 12% on average for 2014 and '15. And I just wanted to understand what was driving that.

James C. Flores

Analyst · Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank

Jorge, there has been a modification of the expectations. Obviously, we've reduced CapEx about 20%. What the change there is really reduce the production growth rate at the Eagle Ford from a 15% growth rate to a 20% decline rate. But we saved $400 million of CapEx -- $300 million of CapEx there specifically, and we generated $300 million of free cash flow. So a $600 million swing in free cash flow. And then these low copper price environments, it's one of the things when you have $110 Brent oil, or you can get -- you can be a cash flow contributor. You saw it in the flexibility of our assets there. The leases are all owned by us, held by production. We can ramp back up the drilling and ramp back up the production, but we thought it was prudent from a standpoint facing debt reductions and low copper prices to generate free cash flow. So that's one area that happened. Additionally, the scheduling of equipment and completions in the ultra-deep, as you mentioned right there, was another area. And then the third area is the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico scheduling has been accelerated. And by -- what I mean by accelerated, we have 3 drill ships planned to be in the Gulf of Mexico next year drilling wells on all of our properties. That requires us to accelerate the development of the tieback facilities to our main production facilities. And when you do that, it takes -- there's a bit of construction time in each one of those facilities, somewhere between 45 and 60 days. Under the accelerated development plan, which will pay huge dividends in 2015 and 2016. 2014, however, we have scheduled 3 major platform modification periods of 60 days each, which all hit in the same year, which have the effect of reducing volumes during that year, but instead of having it spread out over the 3 years during that earlier forecast. So when you amplify that shutdown, which is basically a positive long term because it allows us to bring in all the additional production and meet those goals of triple our production out in the Gulf of Mexico on the oil side and the gas side in the next 5 years, it's unfortunate from a modeling perspective. But I don't think it's just a framework between the Eagle Ford, the ultra-deep and the scheduling in the Deepwater while we've modified our volume. However, we've been able to maintain our free cash flow because of the modifications in CapEx.

Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank

And Jim, sorry, is the idea of not bringing forward the Eagle Ford cash flow to run, as you're saying, to save cash flow, to contribute something up to the Freeport holding company to help in the deleveraging process? Or are you still standing by the idea that the Oil & Gas assets, broadly speaking, are free cash flow neutral to the deleveraging process?

James C. Flores

Analyst · Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank

Both. We're going to be sending cash flow up to the corporation. That's depending on the oil price. Our oil prices are significantly stronger than the $100 a barrel price in our models and so forth. That can mean every $10 of additional $350 million to $400 million of additional cash flow. At least it's going to be funding its own CapEx when you talk about reducing CapEx and reducing volumes. In the strong price environment, we can do that, and that's not always the case, but that's what's going to happen going forward. We will cover our costs.

Jorge M. Beristain - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank

Great. And sorry, if I could just have a follow-up question with Richard, just on the Indonesian side of the fence. All these changes that again, the Indo government continues to propose in terms of the banning of concentrate and raw material exports out of the country. Can you again confirm that you are unaffected by these potential regulatory changes there?

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Jorge Beristain with Deutsche Bank

We have under our contract of work, which is a, as you know, Jorge, but just for -- to make sure that I say this. The contract has -- was adopted by the Indonesian government, has the status of law. And under that contract, it provides us the right to export our concentrates. In 2009, the government passed a law, which restrict exports of ore. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has adopted a regulation that extends that to concentrates. And that's where you hear these comments that come out of Indonesia, which, as a democratic society, you hear a lot of comments as you do here in the press. So we are working in connection with seeking an extension of our contract, which we have the right to have that extension, requires government approval to find ways of working with the government cooperatively to reach a mutually satisfactory answer to this. We have advised the government that we will work with any entities that seeks to develop smelters. We have a commitment to supporting businesses in Indonesia but doing that in a way that protects the interest of our shareholders. And we are continuing those discussions. Recently, government officials have targeted completing our and others' contracts of work discussions this year, and we're prepared to do that and hopeful that, that will be successful and from a timing standpoint. But we have confidence, absolute confidence about our ability to continue to operate as evidenced by the investments we're making in our underground mines, which will be generating their cash flows essentially after 2021 when -- which is the extension period.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs.

Sohail Tharani - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs

How is it going with the labor negotiations? You mentioned in the press release that it has restarted. I was just wondering if it's -- you expect it to go to the end? Or do you think there'll be a conclusion before the contract is finished in September -- in November, I'm sorry?

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs

Okay. Thank you, Sal. The labor negotiations had just had their kick-off meeting in early May right before we had the accident on May 14. And so it was suspended until the last couple of weeks when we restarted our operations and the preliminary discussions have begun. There is a recognition by all interested parties, including the union, our management, the local community, the central government, that a strike would not be in anybody's interest. And so we start out from that standpoint. We had a framework for dealing with wage adjustments that was part of our agreement in 2011 in the last negotiations where we had the extended strike. We're certainly prepared to work with the union on a timely basis. The union has made public comments within the last week that they're targeting completing the negotiations quickly. And so that's the goal right now. I mean, so we will just continue to work and report to you as that progresses, but that's the framework that we're really starting the discussions right now.

Sohail Tharani - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs

Okay. And one more thing on the underground operation. The ramp-up is going to be another year, looks like middle of 2014 you mentioned in the press release. I was just wondering is it you're being more cautious or is it normal that it takes that long from about 40,000 tons per day to 80,000 per ton, which is the optimal level you want to be.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs

Well, Sal, I know that you've watched us for a long time, you watched us develop the DOZ initially, and you saw just the nature and block caving operations is that ramp-ups takes time. We're working on it as quickly as we can safely do it. We certainly hope to be able to do it before the middle of next year. And we're making progress now in achieving that. As always, our guys, as we set these plans on a basis that we have confidence that we can achieve them. And then we work on trying to maximize those plans as we go forward, and we've had a lot of success doing that historically. And so we will -- we're tackling it. We're going at it full stream -- full steam on a safe basis, and I think we have a good chance of beating it. Mark?

Mark J. Johnson

Analyst · Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs

That's right. We have a number of objectives in the DOZ, just not tonnage. We've got a very high-grade section of the orebodies that's in the skarn. We balance that with the diorites that are higher in gold. And so our schedules, although tonnage is one of the measures, we have a lot of things that we're managing. We're going at it to maximize the value of DOZ. We've got some ongoing repairs that were there pre-existing the incident, and we're picking up, and we're making good progress on that. The ramp-up to date has gone or exceeded what we'd expected just for these last couple of weeks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Curt Woodworth with Nomura.

Curtis Rogers Woodworth - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst · Curt Woodworth with Nomura

Richard, I just wondered if you can kind of talk more broadly about how you see the copper business in several years in terms of once you ramp these expansions and transition in the underground, do you see any more meaningful shifts in the unit cost profile of the business? And also what do you think an appropriate level of maintenance spending for the copper business will look like at that time?

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Curt Woodworth with Nomura

Thanks. We're focused on these expansion projects, and the expansion in Cerro Verde and Morenci is basically coming in on unit cost that's consistent with our current operations. At Tenke, that expansion also is unit cost is consistent with current operations. We keep working -- because of that high grades of that ore there, we believe we have the opportunity to drive the unit cost down. A lot of our costs are dealt with -- deal with logistics and power that are -- where we have cheap power now, but we have power supply concerns. And all of that just ties into doing business in that particular country, in that particular location. So we're focused on that. At Grasberg, transition to the underground period will allow that mine to continue as a world-class mine from a cost -- unit cost standpoint. And that all depend on the price of fuel, the price of gold and so forth, but it'll be high volumes, low cost. Then if you look beyond that, in the longer-range future for Freeport, is we have this enormous reserve base and resource base. We'll reach production levels of about 5 billion pounds a year and at $2 copper, we have proved and probable reserves of in excess of 120 billion or 100 billion pounds. And then we have resources beyond that of equivalent amounts of identified copper with our existing mines. Over half of that is in the United States, and it's typical of our current production, relatively low-grade, large resources, but we see those costs coming in consistent with the level of our current operations. So you need to -- just like I was talking about in the oil and gas business, you need to look at gas and oil separately. In our business, you need to look at Indonesia as one set of assets, Africa as one set of assets with tremendous growth opportunities, very high grades. And then in Americas, kind of the standard of what the global copper industry has available to it is resources that have relatively low grades. The thing that we have as a benefit in relation to the rest of the industry is ours are brownfield expansions. And the projects that are challenging are greenfield expansion with low grades and big infrastructure development, lots of pre-stripping and those sorts of things, which we don't have with our operations. So we think with the positive copper movement going forward for a very long period of time, we will have a series of growth opportunities that take time, take permitting, take resources. That's why copper prices are above and likely to continue to be above production cost.

Curtis Rogers Woodworth - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst · Curt Woodworth with Nomura

Great. And one follow-up if I may. Can you kind of characterize the incremental CapEx or savings opportunities? Is that going to be somewhat market dependent where if the copper price were to remain weak, then you would look to accelerate those types of plans? Or do you think that -- you had $1.9 billion you've announced, just kind of the first layer of that process, and there's incremental savings opportunities you're going to look to pursue regardless of the market climate over the next 12 to 18 months?

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Curt Woodworth with Nomura

Well, I can't say enough the way Red and his team have approached this. I mean, we saw the situation in the market volatility develop in June. We saw the need to reduce our debt, and our guys went at it in a very disciplined and quick way just like we did in 2008, 2009. We don't see this situation as anywhere near the challenges or the fears of 2008, 2009. But we started this, as I said, as a first step. It's a continuing process, and we'll be looking at our business in mining and oil and gas with the continuation of doing it. And of course, if market conditions deteriorate, we'll have to do more, and we have the ability to do more both from cost reduction activities and then from being innovative in the way that we extract value out of this broad set of assets. And that could lead to lots of situations, joint venture arrangements in both sets of assets. We looked at MLP opportunities. We've looked at other types of kind of financial, engineering type things. We just have a lot of options to do it. The message that all of us wanting to get across to you today is the message our board has given us. And I know we read -- we've read some skepticism about it because of low copper prices, but we are committed to maintain the strong balance sheet, and we've got ways of doing it.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Duarte with Omega Advisors.

Adam Duarte

Analyst · Adam Duarte with Omega Advisors

On the potential oil and gas asset sale, can you give us a little more detail around the assets, things like commodity mix and reserves associated with the asset and CapEx? And the second question is conceptually speaking, how did you arrive at this asset as being appropriate for sale?

James C. Flores

Analyst · Adam Duarte with Omega Advisors

Adam, it's Jim. We're right at the beginning of our early stages of the sales process, and we've signed confidentiality agreements with buyers and the process of getting that process started. So I don't want to give a whole lot of -- I don't want to expound on a bunch of details that are in that process. But what we're looking for is somewhere between $500 million and $700 million worth of capital out of the Gulf of Mexico shelf business. The Gulf of Mexico shelf conventional is an area that is not a primary growth target for our company. There's other companies out there that see opportunities out there and the risk profile that more fits their needs, as Richard talked about and Jim Bob has also expounded on is the large diversity of assets we have and growth opportunities. But the thing to really to focus on is the high quality of our asset base and the high quality of the growth opportunities that we're going to prune off the ones that don't fit our profile. And so that's basically what we do. And in aspects like the Gulf of Mexico, which is so dynamic, we do have a large position there on the shelf in the Gulf of Mexico and also in the Gulf Coast as well as deepwater. So the process of trimming back in an area and then also reestablishing based on seismic interpretation and so forth is always a possibility. So this was basically one of the easiest places to reallocate our manpower resources to our existing assets and still it raises significant amount of capital and a business that just doesn't fit the new profile of Freeport-McMoRan.

Adam Duarte

Analyst · Adam Duarte with Omega Advisors

So is it safe to say that sort of in the hierarchy of criteria of growth, when you look at your oil and gas assets growth is -- or the ability to achieve, growth is very, very high in the list?

James C. Flores

Analyst · Adam Duarte with Omega Advisors

Well, it's 2 forms. In this large framework of Freeport, you can see where free cash flow is becoming a big aspect for the oil and gas business not only -- we've always focused on it and our business, but we've always used it as reinvestment capital. There's a return on assets, a return on capital structure here at Freeport that we have to adjust to and blend to, and therefore, some of our assets like California and Eagle Ford and so forth that we can find ways to maximize out of these [ph] structures. Like Richard talked about, we're looking at -- seriously looking at an MLP structure that makes -- that would make a lot of sense when we're trading 4.5x cash flow when you can start trading at an 8x cash flow of your assets that qualify. Of all those things, this new family of assets here at Freeport between the copper, oil and gas and gold, has given us an opportunity to be more flexible in structure and try to frame out that value and also accelerate not only the growth of our volumetric assets like the deepwater and the ultra-deep and assets like that, but also some of our free cash flowing assets, be able to rein out value there through the innovative MLP structure. So as we continue to research this and start thinking about putting it together and think about it. Even if that's on the copper side, I think it's going to be exciting days ahead of real value realization. We don't need to create a lot of value. We need to get realized for the value we've already created in these assets, especially at these oil prices.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Adam Duarte with Omega Advisors

And I'll just say, just like I was talking about the growth from the resource base in mining, these growth opportunities in the deepwater from these big structures and the undeveloped, unexploited nature of the resource there that we'll now have access to, the ultra-deep exploration leverage that we have there, this really significant position in Haynesville and the U.S. natural gas business, which we all believe has the opportunity to have a lot of value down the road. As we deal with this near-term directive to reduce debt, we've all got our eyes on the long-term ability to grow in across our set of businesses.

James C. Flores

Analyst · Adam Duarte with Omega Advisors

Just for everybody, remember the analyst day presentation. Those were not exploratory opportunities. We have a long list of development opportunities. We're -- our cup runneth over on growth opportunities and the aspect of present value and those in today's market and also our -- of the reserves that aren't going to grow is one of the high priorities especially in this deleveraging market. So we're totally in sync on all of these.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Oscar Cabrera - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Let me just start, Richard, the -- a clarification, please. During the analyst day, you mentioned CapEx and divestments and savings of about $1.5 billion. So are the asset sales in addition to the $1.9 billion you're presenting now?

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Yes.

Oscar Cabrera - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Yes. Okay, that's easy. Next, would it be possible to provide us with color on -- as to the oil and gas capital expenditures? So what is the percentage of -- how much is being allocated to each one of the regions?

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

In each one of the regions. Slide 24 shows the aggregate oil and gas capital expenditures.

Kathleen L. Quirk

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

There's also, Oscar -- this is Kathleen -- in the press release on Page 13 shows what we incurred in June and what the outlook looks like for the second half of the year, which was $1.3 billion in total, $400 million for the deepwater, similar amount in Eagle Ford and $200 million in the ultra-deep.

Oscar Cabrera - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Just trying -- okay. Now just trying -- and Richard, I'm just trying to assess how much, assuming [ph] Jim talked about the decline in CapEx in the Eagle Ford and wanted to assess how much capital he's been putting for each one of those. I can check back with you if that's easier.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Okay, good, but that's -- for everybody's purposes, look at that, and Oscar, give us a call, and we'll follow up with you on it.

Oscar Cabrera - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Great. And then...

James C. Flores

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Oscar, just Eagle Ford specific, we're cutting -- we're going from about $600 million of CapEx in the Eagle Ford down to about $300 million of CapEx, Eagle Ford specific. So if that helps you in the meantime.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

And we're maintaining capital expenditure in California to keep production volumes up and then...

James C. Flores

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Accelerate the deepwater today.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

The deepwater is where we have the chance of really having major incremental [indiscernible] to create shareholder value, and that's the focus for future growth near term and longer term.

Oscar Cabrera - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

And similarly, with respect to operating costs, you give us the global $19 a barrel. Would it be possible to on a later date, I don't know [indiscernible], just to get a segmentation of the -- on the different areas of oil and gas production?

Kathleen L. Quirk

Analyst · Oscar Cabrera with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

There's a slide, Oscar, in the back in reference slides, which takes you through that. Just looking for the number here. I think it's 31. It shows you by region what the operating cost profile looks like.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research.

John Charles Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research, LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research

As it relates to the ultra-deep gas, could you explain how and when you'll decide to double up versus fold your cards for the big winners and losers and specifically the Davy Jones 1 and 2? And I'm not -- by no means do -- please don't misunderstand me that it's a bad idea. I just think that heat and pressure and temperature varies greatly from spot to spot, so some are going to be easier to complete and others won't. Specifically last month, when you described the 30,000 feet to Davy Jones drill muds solidifying, it almost sounded like the pressure and temperature is like a rift kiln [ph], and frac-ing lends itself to sedimentary layers of shale as opposed to bricks. So that's kind of my thought process. You know how the Comstock in the 1870s, the miners took ice baths every 30 minutes because it was so hot. In other places, it's not like that, that conditions will vary from spot to spot.

James R. Moffett

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research

John, let me say that's why we've been waiting on the results on grounds like Lomond North at Davy Jones. We're waiting on the data from Lineham Creek. We're looking at all of that. And we're also looking at the deepwater. We had some new information. We have the so-called inboard, outboard cost. And what we're finding out there, the sedimentary character of the rock changed significantly as you go from the southern end of the basin to the middle of the basin called inboard, outboard. We're going to have that same thing. And as we go onshore, as we tried to explain to you, we're in shallower depths, and our temperature's going down. Our pressure is going down. Well, as far as north [ph] solidifying bricks and all that, it is not near as eccentric as you described it. So -- but the answer is, as I've said to you before and made an example, if you look at the gestures and then try to [ph] -- if you take them to 4 bore holes that we have to the real cost on the shelf and onshore, that covers up [ph] less than 1/4 of your debt. And we're trying to figure out 200 square mile of area onshore and 200 square mile area on the shale. We're going to get a lot of information. But the sensitivity that you're talking about, that's all part of trying to pick the sweet spot every play and exploration whether it's a shale play or the ultra-deep or the deepwater has a sweet spot. And then we hear an update now on how we're going to be able to that.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Paretosh Misra with Morgan Stanley.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

A question for Jim. I don't know if you've talked a bit about the exploration things. But could you just maybe summarize any couple of -- 2 or 3 things where you do expect an update in third or fourth quarter of this year on exploration side?

James C. Flores

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Sure. On -- initially, the Lomond North and our plans for going forward on Lineham Creek, those 2 projects in ultra-deep will be involved in our decision-making process in the third and fourth quarter. Other than that, it's going to be our Holstein drilling as our rig becomes active on our platform, first time it's been active in about 10 years that we've got a lot of great projects to drill, so we'll begin drilling our deepwater projects in the fourth quarter of 2013. Then '14, you're looking at our Terra project. It's going to be drilled, so very high, high potential Lucius look-alike project. That's going to be drilled in second quarter of '14 to start off, as well as following up with additional projects like England and maybe Martinique. So we'll have a full schedule and calendar starting at '14 going forward of -- for our exciting exploration that we're leveraging into. But as far as the '13 is Lomond, Lineham Creek and then our Holstein development starting in the deepwater.

Paretosh Misra - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

And second and final question on Grasberg probably for Mark. Is there any total mill rate or the DOZ mill rate that you're targeting for the year-end 2013?

Mark J. Johnson

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Yes, we'll be, in DOZ, we'll be up to 70,000 tons at the end of the year. The total mill rate will be 210, 220. We'll also be bringing up the Big Gossan. We'll likely begin to ramp up again. We took some of the resources from Big Gossan in the third quarter and allocated them to development crews and to the DOZ. So we'll be at the 210 to 220. 2014 will be roughly 225.

Operator

Operator

Your final question will come from the line of Carly Mattson with Goldman Sachs.

Carly Mattson - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Could you give a little more color on the commentary you made earlier about considering refinancing the balance sheet and the higher cost debt? And in particular, how -- talk to any updated views on how Freeport looks at potential decline from the BHP bonds?

Kathleen L. Quirk

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Carly, this is Kathleen. That is a priority of ours. We've got just under $2 billion in debt that we can use equity callbacks for. And so we'll be looking to do that either with cash flow generated or asset sales or refinancing. But that debt will be our most economic debt to repay in the near term, so we're very focused on that. We've also got a series of securities within the assumed debt that have calls over the next few years, and so we'll be looking at that, and we're going to be opportunistic about that and looking at what makes sense economically. But it is an objective of ours over time to refinance the balance sheet into more of an investment-grade type of a balance sheet.

Carly Mattson - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

And is there any -- is there a specific timing that we should be thinking about for at least the callback portion of the bonds?

Kathleen L. Quirk

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

We're going to be looking to do that just as soon as we can. We're looking at free cash flow generation, as well as some of these other initiatives that are underway.

Richard C. Adkerson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

All right. We appreciate everybody's interest and participation, and we look forward to reporting success as we go forward this year.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.