Freeport Sags as Copper Price, Output Dent Second-Quarter View

(Bloomberg) -- Freeport-McMoRan Inc. fell the most in seven weeks after the miner said lower copper prices and reduced production at its Indonesian operation will trim second-quarter sales and earnings.

Freeport expects to generate adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation of about $430 million in the quarter “and to record an approximate 5-cent per share loss to net income before any non-recurring items,” the company said in a statement Monday. Jefferies LLC had forecast the company to report EBITDA of $774 million and per-share profit of 16 cents.

Copper sales will be recorded at an average of about $2.73 a pound, below analysts’ estimates of $2.95, the company said. The Grasberg site in Indonesia opened an additional mining area during the quarter, delaying access to high-grade material and trimming copper and gold output. That will result in higher unit net cash costs than previously estimated.

“We see this could also be a potential warning across the copper-gold sector of rising cash costs, unless the recent price recovery of the metals is sustained during 2H,’’ Eily Ong, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a note.

Copper prices in London fell about 11% in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier as concerns over the U.S.-China trade war and the prospect of slowing global economies eroded investor demand.

The Phoenix-based company expects consolidated sales for the year to be in line with the April estimates of 3.3 billion pounds of copper and 800,000 ounces of gold.

Freeport fell as much as 6.5% to $10.86 a share in New York, the biggest intraday decline since May 13.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Richter in New York at jrichter1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Luzi Ann Javier at ljavier@bloomberg.net, Joe Richter

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