Freeport Outage Brings Relief in Tight Market for Copper Ore
Haul trucks transport ore from the open pit at Freeport McMoRan Inc.'s Grasberg copper and gold mining complex in Papua province, Indonesia.
Photographer: Dadang Tri/BloombergFreeport-McMoRan Inc. is selling unexpectedly large volumes of copper ore following an outage at a plant it owns in Indonesia, bringing short-term relief to smelters who’ve faced a historic squeeze on supply.
The move by the US miner follows an incident affecting the oxygen plant at its PT Smelting facility, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. That’s led to an extension of an ongoing four-week maintenance shutdown at the plant, which is fed by Freeport’s flagship Grasberg copper-gold mine.