Earnings Labs

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 24, 2018

$56.72

-2.51%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Freeport-McMoRan Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. 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 - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to the Freeport-McMoRan third quarter 2018 earnings conference call. Our results were released earlier this morning and a copy of the press release and slides for today's call are available on our website at fcx.com. Our call today is being broadcast live on the Internet and anyone may listen to the call by accessing our website homepage and clicking on the webcast link for the conference call. 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 want to remind everyone that today's press release and certain of our comments on the call include forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially. We want to refer everyone to the cautionary language included in our press release and presentation materials and to the risk factors described in our 2017 Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. Richard Adkerson is on the call today, as well as Red Conger, Mark Johnson, and Mike Kendrick. I'll start by briefly summarizing our financial results, and then turn the call over to Richard, who'll be referring to our prepared slides for today's call. As usual, after our remarks, we'll open up the call for questions. Today, FCX reported net income attributable to common stock of $556 million, or $0.38 per share, for the third quarter of 2018. The results included net gains of $42 million, or $0.03 per share, which primarily reflected adjustments to assets held for sale and the fair value of potential contingent consideration, partly offset by non-recurring charges associated with a new three-year collective labor agreement at Cerro Verde. After adjusting for these net gains, our adjusted net income totaled…

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Good morning, everyone. As we'll be talking about, as I do review these highlights, it's been a very active quarter for us here at FCX. Results from our global mining operations have been solid, our teams continue to execute our plans in a very effective way. In Indonesia, we had an important milestone in progressing our efforts to reach stabilization of our business there in terms of our negotiations with the government with the signing of definitive divestment agreements on September 27. Operations, current operations in Papua have been strong, and we've made important progress in transitioning the Grasberg ore body mining from open pit to underground, so we'll talk about that. We are continuing our sharp focus on the important things about our business to build shareholder value. Our unit net costs are at $0.93 a pound, significantly below last year and in line with our plans, it does reflect for the nine months $0.02 as a result of the successful settlement of our labor situation in Cerro Verde and Peru, so that was very good. Operating cash flows exceeded CapEx in the third quarter by $740 million [ph], $2.5 billion to-date. Net debt, as Kathleen mentioned, is down $2 billion from the start of the year. And this agreement with Inalum is really important. It establishes the path to reaching long-term stability and de-risk our operations over the long-term in Indonesia. We're going to talk about Lone Star. I mean, we're very excited about it in terms of the future of our company, and this is a ore body that's been identified for decades, but we're doing a lot of core drilling and the more we drill, the more optimistic we get about this ore body becoming a world-class mining operation in the future. It's growing now, has…

Unverified Participant

Management

Dollars.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

...dollars. $4.2 billion. We are going to have some tax – essentially tax-related working capital usage totaling about $500 million in the fourth quarter. And we of course very highly leverage copper prices for the fourth quarter of $0.10 means just over $100 million to us. No real changes in our capital expenditures from previous guidance. And so we're basically confirming the guidance we've given you previously. Sales profiles are presented on the slide 12. We've essentially brought forward some copper from the fourth quarter into the third quarter this year. We always try to do that. We'll try to do it in the fourth quarter. But for the year, our – we were up in the third quarter keeping our year guidance consistent with where we are. And you can see how the outlook goes for copper, gold and molybdenum. When we look at the cash flow generating capacity of our company on slide 13, we are showing this to show the transition years, 2019 and 2020, and then the average for the years after transition (sic) 2021 and 2022...

Unverified Participant

Management

2021, 2022.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

2021, 2022. And EBITDA would be $4.3 billion at $3 copper, $7.1 billion for 2021, 2022 at (31:52) $3 copper, operating cash flows just over $3 billion to $4.7 billion, and the $3.50, that grows significantly to EBITDA of $5.9 billion for the transition years, over $9 billion for the subsequent years with cash flows $4.3 billion to $6.4 billion. So, our company is characterized by the ability to generate very strong cash flows from our existing productive facilities. Capital expenditures, really no changes from what we've talked about. We had a plan, we're sticking with it. Financial policy, Kathleen talked about net debt being at $6.6 billion at the end of September. In early 2016, we had set a plan to reduce our $20 billion of debt at that time by $5 billion to $10 billion over two years. We've already done $13.6 billion. And so we've really come a long way in addressing Freeport's balance sheet issue and we have a strong financial situation now after the strong deleveraging over the past two years. And so, we are – as I said, looking forward continue to strengthen our balance sheet. We reinstated the dividend. We're looking forward to the time of paying higher dividends. We've got growth opportunities. We're going to be very disciplined about when we undertake those. We're going to need to see clarity in the marketplace, some of these uncertainties resolved, and we'll continue to review this financial policy as we go forward. But I'm really pleased with the way our company is really set up for future success. With our global portfolio of copper assets, copper is very attractive. When you look at its long-term fundamental market outlook, that's something you hear from a lot of others in the industry. With our company, we have strong margins and cash flows, long-lived reserves, good development opportunities, geographically diversed with 75% of our future P&D (34:23) come from the Americas. And we've got a great organization that's experienced and had success. Now, we've addressed our balance sheet, I believe the Indonesian overhang issue has been addressed, I will say we're no longer debating issues in Indonesia. We do have to complete some documentations of our agreements prior to closing. We expect closing to occur, if not at the end of 2018, in very early 2019. And today, I would suggest that our attraction – our value attraction is – valuation is attractive in light of all these other factors. And we are looking forward to outperforming and committed to that. So, I will open the line for questions. I look forward to responding to any questions you may have.

Operator

Operator

Our first question will come from the line of Chris Terry with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Chris Terry - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Hi, Richard and Kathleen, thanks for taking my questions. First one I had is just on the capital allocation decision going forward. I think you'd mentioned previously that you wanted to get net debt below $5 billion as your target. So, can you just talk through where you want the balance sheet to be at? And then leading on from that, if you believe in copper, you've talked about the fundamentals and how you see it playing going forward, will you invest in new projects and potentially look at M&A et cetera if the sentiment remains bearish, i.e., will you continue down the path that you see is the right way to add value even if investment sentiment isn't in the market for the next year or so? Thanks. That's the first question.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Chris, I'll take the first part of that, and let Richard address the second part. Our net debt target has been reached. We had set out to get that net debt to $10 billion. And we reached that last year. And so, now we're just continuing to strengthen the balance sheet. We've initiated the dividend to shareholders, we'll continue to look at capital allocation and return to shareholders, but we feel good about the net debt that we currently have, and that is below our target.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So, Chris, with respect to your second question, we're going to prepare ourselves for future investments. We've got a number of alternatives and we're going through a ranking process to decide sort of which one to focus in on first, and we'll do that. I would say, in thinking about what you said; to me, this is not a question of investor sentiment, but it's really a question is, where is this world heading. On one hand, if – and this is the consensus view of business people I talk to that all of this issues between the U.S. and China today is a posture in creating a lever to try to address some fundamental industrial policy issues in China, and many people believe that there will be a resolution of that similar to what we just went through with NAFTA and so forth that it's a question of style and strategy to reach a settlement. And that's one thing, because if that's reached, then – the underlying economies are still really strong in China and globally, and particularly in the United States. On the other hand, if this goes in a different direction and results in a significant impact in China, there are those who say that China has the ability to address a weakening of its export manufacturing economy by investing in infrastructure, in this Belt and Road Initiative and so forth. But all of that, it's a question of what really is result of all of this. If that has an impact on copper demand in China so important, then we're going to wait to see how that sorts out. So, we're not going to be bullheaded about this, we're not going to be overly confident about our ability to predict it. We're going to prepare. We're…

Chris Terry - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks. Thanks for the color there. And my second question is just around Grasberg specifically. I assume you'll give guidance or you'll zoom in on the full year results in February. But can you talk just a little bit more about 1Q and 2Q? I guess you've given guidance that the open pit will be complete by the end of – or the middle of 2019. Which is, I guess, the highest risk period in 1Q or 2Q, how do you see those two quarters playing out specifically? Thanks.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Well, the open pit will continue through the first half, and we're not expecting at this point for Deep MLZ to start caving. So most of the production that we're expecting in the first half is coming from established production either the open pit or DOZ in the first half. We have in our estimates for Deep MLZ incorporated some contingency plans and at this point in time, we still believe that the mid-2019 startup is appropriate. We do have the chance to potentially accelerate that. And as we always do, we always look for ways to accelerate metal. But we will begin – as Richard said, we've got the Grasberg Block Cave infrastructure prepared, and we will begin activities in the Grasberg Block Cave in the first half in parallel with completing the open pit. So, the Deep MLZ, as Richard said, is a very small portion of our 2019 production, it's less than 10% of our ore through the mill.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

And, Chris, just refer back page 8, and you can see that Deep MLZ and the Grasberg Block Cave are both small parts of the annual production in 2019 growing in 2020, and the pit is completed in first half of 2019, DOZ is there. So you can see from that really where we're doing and that starts emerging in the second half of the year when we're out of the pit altogether.

Chris Terry - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Chris.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Korn with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Matthew Korn - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Hey, good morning, everyone.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Good morning. Matthew Korn - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Congratulations on a good solid operational quarter there. Question on Indonesia, in the context of the agreement, if you could help us understand a little bit more where we are regarding the environmental issues. I think it's an element I find investors are still somewhat unclear. So, first, have there been any changes so far as to what's actually been requested of Freeport? Second, what part of the government are you interacting with and what's your read on what they want? And then again at the end, at the end of the day, do you expect that this is going to result in any kind of real material change to the operations there? Thanks.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks, Matthew. Good to hear from you. So, the government is working in a coordinated fashion across the ministries. Energy and Mines Ministry, which administers our basic operations; the Finance Ministry; the state-owned enterprise industry which manages our new partner, Inalum, and the Ministry of Environmental and Forestry, which deals with the environmental issues. We have been given assurances that environmental issues will be resolved in a way that will not disrupt our operations or add significant additional cost to our operations. And, in fact, there is today and recently articles in the Indonesian press to that effect. We are working with the Environmental Ministry to document how to deal with these new decrees that came out and announced in our first quarter earnings call. And so, the objective is to come up with ways to amend those decrees to achieve that objective of not disrupting our operations or adding additional costs. All of us are working together that – as you can imagine, this is a significant matter for Inalum and its financing activities. And we've been working with their banks and lawyers in terms of understanding that and working with the Environmental Ministry to achieve that goal. So, everybody is working with the same goal. We have to get documentation for it. It's necessary to have that done before we close the deal. We also have some wording in the new license agreement to complete. We're working on some agreements to give us international arbitration rights to enforce our rights going forward. All of those things, as I said earlier – issues are not being debated. Work is coming together to get documentation of what we've agreed to. Matthew Korn - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Got it. I appreciate all that color. Very helpful. Second one is simpler, yeah, we saw the one-time charge for Cerro Verde that had been the big pending labor agreement for you all. Cost-wise, what should we think – how should the effect be in terms of P&D costs going forward for that region as a result? Thanks.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Matthew, this is Kathleen. We're not expecting any significant changes in our net cash costs in South America or North America as we look forward. As Richard talked about earlier, we have been taking steps during 2018 to reinitiate mining rates and reestablish the production capacity following the curtailments in 2015 and 2016. But from here, we're not expecting the unit cost to change significantly as we look forward...

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Yeah, great...

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

...for 2018.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

And I'll compliment Red here that milling facility I believe is the largest in the world in the mining industry and with our recent expansion and the sizeable mill that we had there before that, man, it's going great. I mean, it is above nameplate. And so all of that – it's a big low-grade deposit, mining is relatively easy, just a lot of work, lot of material to move, but that's a great operation with years of – of a lot of cash flows ahead of it. And we were very pleased with the labor settlement. We had this one-time charge, but it allowed us to meet the aspirations of the workforce and do it in a way that controlled our costs. Matthew Korn - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Great. I appreciate it. Best of luck to you, folks.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Okay. Good luck to you too, Matthew.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead.

Lucas N. Pipes - B. Riley FBR, Inc.

Analyst · Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead

Hey, good morning, everybody. Richard, Kathleen, I wanted to follow up a little bit on the shareholder agreement that has been put in place to maintain the split of economics through 2022 and then beyond. In the hypothetical case where maybe things take a little bit longer to ramp in Indonesia, would you still preserve the same split? So, in other words, if maybe production goes from 2022 to 2023, would that have any impact on your economics? Thank you.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Yeah.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

The answer is, yes. We preserve the economics.

Lucas N. Pipes - B. Riley FBR, Inc.

Analyst · Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead

That's... (49:33)

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

We'll be in the same position we would have been in with Rio Tinto.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

There is a specified amount of metal that...

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

It's not a timing deal, it's a specified amount of metal.

Lucas N. Pipes - B. Riley FBR, Inc.

Analyst · Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead

Great. Excellent.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

And one thing I should have mentioned when I was talking about this overall deal, when we were on the NPV of this operation under our COW and our joint venture arrangements with Rio Tinto, it's rough – it's very much equivalent to what we'll have under this new structure. And if you think about how far we've come to end up with an answer of where we've achieved our goal for extension stability and preserved the FCX's economic interest in this great asset, that's a great accomplishment. And we're not popping the champagne bottles until closing, but we're very optimistic about getting this done in the timeframe that I talked about.

Lucas N. Pipes - B. Riley FBR, Inc.

Analyst · Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead

Excellent. No, great job on it. And, yeah, I look forward to the agreement coming over the finish line here in short order. I wanted to follow-up on the operations in Indonesia. So, Richard, I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you've de-risked it. Now when I look at your guidance, it hasn't changed materially. So should we be thinking about you having narrowed the confidence interval around the mean? So if you could elaborate on that, that would be helpful. And specifically to the DMLZ and Grasberg Block Cave, what are some of the milestones that we should be looking forward to over the next six months or so?

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So this is what we've done. With respect to our current operations – and it's the open pit mine, the DOZ essentially, but also running the mill with the ore flow delivery systems, with the concentrate delivery systems, using the slurry pipelines to get to the port, our relationship with our workforce and local community and security, all of those things are much, much improved and they are important. Then in terms of the Grasberg Block Cave development, which over the years with all the disruptions that we had from export bans and security issues and so forth, that's just gone really good. I mean, Mark Johnson and his team have done an exceptional job, and now, Mark, pipe up. But I say, we have completed and met all the risk of infrastructure development for the Block Cave mine, so that's important. That's not risk facing us. We are addressing the seismicity issue at the Deep MLZ. Early indications are that this fracking approach, which we've never used, but is common technology in the industry, is going to be very effective in dealing with that issue for us going forward. So, that's a major positive. So, milestones to watch. Beginning in the second half of 2019, we began block caving mining in the Grasberg Block Cave. That's very similar to – it's big, but it's very similar to what we've been doing now since early 1980s. We know the rock fully drilled, same rock that we mine from the pit. So, you'll be able to see the results of that in the second half of the year, the beginning results of it. And then, as we continue with this fracking operation in the Deep MLZ, we'll see the consequence of that, but we're really encouraged about it right now. So, how do I answer your question? There's always risk in mining. There's always risk in underground mining. But, Mark, why don't you...?

Mark J. Johnson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Analyst · Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead

Yeah, just to elaborate a little bit on the GBC. We announced last quarter that we commissioned the ore flow system, which was the big crushing/conveying system. We continue to ramp up the rail system, which – what delivers ore from the mine to the mill or to the ore flow system, and that's ramping up as expected. We took our first undercut blast in September, a little ahead of schedule. And in January, we do our first drawbell in the Grasberg Block Cave, and that continues to ramp up. The GBC, Grasberg Block Cave, is a little different than some of our other block caves, in that we have multiple working areas. And so, we're paging the – ramp the same process throughout three different areas over 2019. The Deep MLZ, as Richard mentioned, the hydrofracking is working very well. We're seeing the seismic response that we would like. We're getting the seismic stresses away from our working areas and above the cave, and we're seeing good signs that the cave is propagating vertically, which is what we hope for and it's a very optimistic start. Big Gossan, we don't talk about that a lot, but we're ramping it up to full production of 7,000 tonnes a day by the fourth quarter of 2019, and that's about a year ahead of schedule that we had a year ago. And then the DOZ, we don't look past it. It's still a significant producer. We're continuing to advance the remote mining associated with the wet material that we're dealing with. And we're very encouraged by that. We've had – this last week we're well over 40,000 tonnes a day, and that's where we need to be next year. So those are the milestones that I see. The mill next year won't be a constraint. Power systems, we're going to be doing a lot of maintenance, as needed, and being prepared for the ramp-up 2020 and 2021.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks, Mark.

Lucas N. Pipes - B. Riley FBR, Inc.

Analyst · Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead

This has been very helpful. I appreciate all the detail on this and best of luck.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question...

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

I was just going to say, in the interest of time, if we could limit people's questions to one, so we can move through this. We've got a list of people in the queue, so...

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from the line of Alex Hacking with Citi. Please go ahead.

Alexander Hacking - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead

Yeah, thanks, Richard and Kathleen. Richard, in your prepared remarks, you talked about that you were slowing down some investments. I guess, could you be more specific there, if possible, in terms of investments or projects that you're slowing down and also kind of the cadence of (00:56:56).

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So it's not...

Alexander Hacking - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead

Thanks.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Alex, maybe I wasn't clear, but it's not really slowing down things. It's when do we initiate investments. I mean, we're continuing with our Grasberg underground development, the Lone Star project, and so forth. So, we haven't really slowed those things down. We're, obviously, looking at costs and constraining them in this uncertain market environment. But the issue is, when do we start major new projects on our resources and we've deferred the decision to start those until we get market clarity. And that would include our potential large scale project at El Abra in Chile, where with our partner Codelco we've completed pre-feasibility. It's an attractive project, lots of capital. We've got projects in the United States at various of our mines, including a mill expansion at our Bagdad mine in Northwest Arizona. So, what we slowed down is pulling the trigger to start, but that's where we are.

Alexander Hacking - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead

Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Okay, good

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Hi. Good morning. Richard, just wanted to ask to get a bit of color just from some of the recent media articles, where you've been interviewed. It seems to suggest that the company is open to a sale. And I'm just curious how to think about that, given your earlier comments about just all the resources you have on the ground and all the future projects and sort of how undervalued you are. Can you maybe offer a bit of context on those comments?

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

I'm glad to. Thank you for your question. So, as most of you probably have noted, as we've been in negotiation over this extended period in Indonesia, other than our earnings call and investor conferences, I have really not been giving interviews to the media like I used to. Trying to encourage our partners in Indonesia also to not do this. So, around LME, with the signing of this agreement, I've given a number of interviews, including one interview where at the very end of a large interview I was asked the question – I didn't bring it up – that there had been some comments in the marketplace that Freeport could potentially be acquired. I have a stock answer to that. I'm saying, we have no plans to sell the company, we're focused on our internal business. Two, as a public company, we're going to be open to opportunities for our shareholders as they evolve in the future and that would be a wide range of opportunities that we might have. And so it was a stock answer, one I've given for years, one I'll continue to give. And in my view it was mischaracterized in headlines in the way this thing was talked about. I personally do not believe that in today's world with these uncertainties, there are opportunities for big M&A transactions in the industry. I certainly don't consider it to be something that we would look at in the near term, given our share price.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Okay, perfect. So it's not something you're actively pursuing?

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

No. And like I said, I don't think in today's world with all these uncertainties, I think it's unlikely that anybody's going to be pursuing big scale deals.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you. And just one clarification. In slide 23, the Grasberg mine plan, can you maybe explain how come the gold at 1.9 million ounces in 2022 is the same when you show it on 100% basis versus including Rio's share and then PT-FI share, whereas obviously the copper is different, I assume, because of the metal sharing agreement. But does that not apply to the gold in that year?

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

It also applies to gold. It's just that when you look at the years 2019 through 2021, the production is less than the metal strip. And when you get to 2022, there is some sharing in copper. But the way the metal strip works for gold, all the gold in 2022 is – substantially all the gold in 2022 is for PT-FI's interest.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So there is different metal strip for copper and gold.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

These metal strips were decided (01:01:59) in 1996, 1997, and they were just fixed. And so that's just the way it works. It was based on the old mine plan with old government capacity. And it was just a complicated part of that original agreement with Rio Tinto.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Okay. And just finally, will you be continuing to consolidate Grasberg when this definitive agreement is completed or are you going to change sort of the way you start reporting this?

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So that's an issue we're currently studying as we complete this deal. Normally, in consolidation, 51% is the criteria for share ownership. This is different, because we have base control over operations through the structure in the shareholders' agreement. So, it is something that we're considering now. I'll tell you this, in terms of meeting our objectives, Freeport's objectives, of having authority to control the operations of the business, we're very satisfied with the way this thing ended up. And when we have time with investor meetings and so forth, we can go through that in some detail, but we have an operating committee that FCX controls and its authority is broad and effective in terms of running the business.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you very much.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thanks. And I'll just ask again to limit to one question, if possible.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

And get back in the line if you have time, so...

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Oscar Cabrera with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Oscar Cabrera - CIBC World Markets, Inc.

Analyst · CIBC. Please go ahead

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Well, my three questions became two and now one, but that's fair enough. So, getting back to capital allocation, disciplined approach is great. Balance sheet appears to be where you want it to be, but you're still generating strong cash flows from operations. So can you talk a little bit more about returning cash to shareholders with share buybacks that some of your mining peers are doing be considered in that?

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So, well, Oscar, while we met our targets in the uncertainties with today's world, excess cash flows will continue to be used to reduce debt. Our cash flows will fall off in these transition years, so we face that circumstance. And then with these uncertainties in the overall marketplace that I talk about with Chris' question initially, that's going to make us conservative and cautious about financial policy. So, we're going to be solid with what we're doing and it's driven by both, the circumstances in the marketplace and our company's situation of having these transition years. But when we look beyond that, then we'll have lots of opportunities to do different things.

Oscar Cabrera - CIBC World Markets, Inc.

Analyst · CIBC. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you, Richard. So, I'll get back in the queue.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

Congratulations on all the good progress and people even asking about buybacks. In terms of El Abra and Bagdad potential projects that might move ahead in better times, roughly, how many metric tons per day might the mills be at El Abra or Bagdad, roughly?

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

At El Abra, we're looking at roughly the size of Cerro Verde 2, 240,000 tonnes a day, and at Baghdad... Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.: 120,000 tonnes.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

As you hear Red, 120,000 tonnes.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

120,000 tonnes, John. Now, these aren't equivalent projects. First of all, El Abra in Chile has a 49% partner. We have 51%. It will involve a major desalinization plant and the infrastructure to pump that water to elevation with attendant energy costs associated with it. It's a great resource, but it's a bigger project. At Bagdad, benefits from no taxes as we go forward. We've for years made plans for developing water resources for it, tailings areas. And so, it's a smaller project in the aggregate. We own 100% of it. We own the land and sea there. It's a remote area, great relationships with local community, straightforward type project. So, those are the tradeoffs. And then in the U.S., we have the benefit of attractive energy cost today, good regulatory environment, a workforce that is supported by the community in terms of housing, education, and healthcare, and so forth. People drive their trucks to work, bring their lunch. So there's a lot of tradeoffs, John, that go into those decisions. And over the years – and you remember like I too well when the Southwest copper district was considered totally dead. With all those changes today, it is very attractive.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thanks, John.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Brian MacArthur - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead

Good morning. You brought up the tax advantage a few times. So just very quickly, can you remind me where we are on tax pools in each of the regions? So if I'm looking for after tax cash flow or cash cost per unit of copper, I mean, you're sort of saying it's 10% or less in the U.S., it's 35% in Peru and Chile, and 50% in Indonesia. I'm just trying to see the next couple of years if you have lower Indonesia earnings or whatever, how that's all going to blend in and you're going to generate after tax cash flow?

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So, we're unlike many other global companies, in that we pay higher taxes outside the U.S., whereas many companies before tax reform paid higher taxes in the U.S. We're taxed individually in those countries and those tax rates, in Indonesia there's a 35% corporate income tax. There's a 10% withholding tax that's additional to that for funds that come out of Indonesia, and then you have the royalties that you have there. So all of that's there. In the U.S., we have a very large tax loss carryforward, so that our tax rate for a long time will be zero. And when that expires many years in the future, under the current tax laws, the effective tax rate on our operations in the U.S. would be about 11%. And that's because percentage depletion was retained under tax. And so that's where we are. In South America ...

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

It's around 35%, yeah.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

You're right.

Brian MacArthur - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead

And those are cash taxes, right, as opposed to effective accounting taxes?

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Correct.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Yeah, we write checks internationally like everybody else.

Brian MacArthur - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead

Perfect, great. It's just you brought it up and said it's – your, obviously, cash flow is going down, but your after tax is being somewhat more efficient across the U.S. versus Indonesia as we go forward, right? So it's not going down at first if you look...

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Well, the U.S. production is not going down – our U.S. production and South America production is not going down. It's only...

Brian MacArthur - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead

Right, right.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

...Indonesia and that will be shielded, to a degree, by taxes there. That's an important thing in looking at the smelter obligation too. The smelter costs will have a tax effect associated with it.

Brian MacArthur - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead

Great, thanks. And that's all embedded, which I assume is why when you look at that chart on page 13, you see the EBITDA over the transition years compressing down and the average operating cash flow, it doesn't go down as much as you think, because you're getting all those tax benefits.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Well, yeah, tax consequence...

Brian MacArthur - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Brian MacArthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead

For tax consequence. So it's not a benefit, I get it. Okay. Great. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Brian.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Dudas with Vertical Research. Please go ahead.

Michael S. Dudas - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Michael Dudas with Vertical Research. Please go ahead

Hi. Good morning, everybody. Looking at your capital spending plan over the next few years in the chart, I noticed the increase in the maintenance or non-growth spending. Is that all catch-up? Is there some equipment squeeze or any unusual opportunities that you're going to see there for the next few years or are you anticipating higher vendor prices for what you're going to be investing? Thank you.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Well, some of it is we had deferred maintenance during 2015, 2016, into 2017, so some of it is catch-up. But this is – I mean, these are very reasonable levels of maintenance capital for operation our size. There's nothing unusual there and we've done some great things like – Red, when's the last time we bought a truck? Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.: 2008, a new one.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

A new truck in 2008. We rebuild all of our trucks. We've got great deals with our tire – we're constantly working with our suppliers to mitigate cost increases. And when you step back from this, this is a very reasonable level of maintenance cost for an operation of this size and this nature.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Yeah. And to answer the latter part of your question, we're not seeing, of course, only edges (01:12:16). We've always got cost inflation to manage and work with our vendors, but that's not the reason why we've got capital where it is. It's more this effort to sustain our operations, rebuild the equipment, add equipment to increase mining rates, and which we believe will drive long term value.

Michael S. Dudas - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Michael Dudas with Vertical Research. Please go ahead

Thank you, all.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Mancini with Gabelli & Company. Please go ahead. Christopher Domenic Mancini - Gabelli & Co.: Hi, everybody. Thanks. Just a quick question. In the North America operations, you're saying that the costs there were a little bit higher in the quarter because of higher mining rates. And, Richard, you kind of referenced this in your opening comments that you're mining more now relative to what you were doing when you were trying to cut costs. Is this laybacks at some of the mines and is it – when these are completed, will the unit costs come back down in North America? And then also, is there an opportunity to reopen the Miami mine? Those are my two questions. Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.: So, Chris, this is Red. Christopher Domenic Mancini - Gabelli & Co.: Hi. Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.: The mining rates are at levels that we can sustain long-term, gives us the flexibility to be able to blend ores and all those kinds of things are important to us and higher copper prices and longer term outlook for those mines, and the cost will come down a bit as we get all of that dialed in. We are playing catch-up. Right now, we constantly look at the resources that we have. We don't see anything out in the future for Miami, but it's not off the list either.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Yeah. We have an ongoing program of environmental management there and when we discuss with other operators in the area things that might be possibilities. We are very encouraged about our Chino mine in New Mexico, which we thought it would be completed by now, but we're finding resources at depth. So, we started this Cobre project there to help current operations. Our guys are doing a great job managing that currently and it has some potential for the future as well. Christopher Domenic Mancini - Gabelli & Co.: Okay. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Matt Murphy with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Matt Murphy - Barclays Investment Bank

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Hi, Richard. Just another question on the pipeline in the Americas. I'm interested in what you think your response time could be. If at some point you feel more comfortable on the copper price outlook, how quickly you could put some of these options into production?

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So I think the most shovel-ready-type project we have is at Bagdad and it's five, six, seven, eight years from pulling the trigger to go to getting production out of it.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Now, you've seen the Lone Star...

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Yeah.

Kathleen L. Quirk - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

...production that we're expecting to come online at the end of 2020. And as Richard was talking about earlier, as we strip, we're really going to expose additional oxides, and there could be a project at Lone Star to increase from 200 million to higher rates. We'd have to put in some additional tank house capacity, but that one could be quicker in terms of adding volumes, because we think the resources there adding some capacities, that will be quicker than putting in a new mill, for instance. So Lone Star keep on the radar for potential increases to the 200 million that we've got at the end of the 2020 period.

Matt Murphy - Barclays Investment Bank

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead

Okay. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our final question will come from the line of Timna Tanners with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Oh, hey, good morning. Thanks for letting me in. Just one question. I wanted to ask if you could please give us an update on any details regarding the Grasberg smelter. I noticed a small change in language between the two releases. And also as you were talking about cash flow expectations for the next several years, I didn't hear a mention of the smelter. So, if you could just provide us your latest thinking on timing, cost, and split with Inalum, that would be great.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

So, it is the commitment of our companies that with the completion of the extension, the documentation, the resolution of the environmental issues, all of this comes together as a package at one time; the share transfers, the shareholders' agreement, all of that, it's a one-time closing of a number of these different things. And with that completed, we will undertake to fulfill our commitment of PT-FI to build the smelter. It would be on a standalone basis to enhance the $3 billion project. We've said we would do this and we are committed to do this within five years of signing this document. It would be a commitment of PT-FI, so Inalum would be 50% owner of that commitment and they've agreed to participate in any equity capital calls that might be required for that. We have plans to develop a project-type financing with that, as we did with the existing smelter back in the 1990s. And so we would proceed to maximize project-type debt financing probably or financing through PT-FI to minimize upfront capital for it. Then we have the potential of bringing other partners into this. We're having discussions with PT Amman, which acquired the Batu Hijau mine from Newmont. They face the smelter commitment and we're having ongoing discussions with them about participating with us, and that has the potential of reducing – increase the size of the smelter, but decrease the capital requirements for our company. Going back to the earlier conversation about tax effects; big picture, currently the government gets about 50% of the economics of the projects through taxes and royalties. They now have 50% of the equity. So, 75% of all this is the government now. I mean, our 25% interest is potentially what we had under the Rio Tinto deal and so forth. So, all these numbers you need to take into account that the effect of the smelter will be reduced by tax consequences and by the government's participation in it. So, we've spent couple of hundred million dollars today in planning. We're working with contractors. And with completion of the deal, we'll move forward with construction, contract plans, and so forth, and we'll be able then to lay out a cash flow profile for what will be required, how it would be financed, and what capital commitments will be for us.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Okay. And completed within five years or begun within five years, my just one clarification.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Completed within five years. We will commence – I mean, we're doing planning now, but we'll commence the project immediately on issuance of the new license and completion of all these other transactions is part of the package.

Timna Beth Tanners - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you very much.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

I will now turn the call back over to management for any closing remarks.

Richard C. Adkerson - Freeport-McMoRan, Inc.

Management

All right. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate your interest. If you have follow-up questions, get back to David Joint, and we'll be moving on and upward.

Operator

Operator

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