Commodities & Metals

Can Freeport-McMoRan Survive in Indonesia?

Paul Ausick

Published: August 9, 2016 7:25 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 4:48 am

At last count, activist investor Carl Icahn held about 8.2% of the outstanding shares of gold and copper miner Freeport-McMoran Inc. (NYSE: FCX). He won two board seats last year after getting the company to chop the number of board members from 16 to nine. Maybe the company should send him over to negotiate with the Indonesian government for an export license renewal.

The government has once again failed to renew Freeport’s export license for another six-month term. It expired Monday, August 8, and while the company maintains a positive attitude, the last time this happened (last February) Freeport was unable to export its copper ore for nearly two weeks. Without an export license, more than 200,000 tons per day of copper ore is added to a pile somewhere in Indonesia.

In early 2014, Freeport was unable to export its copper concentrate for more than two months due to a dispute with the government over a proposed export tax increase that could have risen to as much as 60% by this year.

The dispute’s core is a desire by the government to move up the value chain by forcing miners, primarily Freeport, to build more smelters in the country. The government is also entitled to increase its stake in Freeport’s Grasberg mine to 20%. Freeport in January valued the mine at $16.2 billion, indicating the government could add a 10.64% stake to its existing 9.36% stake for $1.7 billion. Indonesia claims the increased stake is worth $630 million.

The company’s contract to operate the Grasberg mine expires in 2021 and, by the contract’s terms, negotiations on a new deal cannot begin until 2019. Freeport wants the negotiations on a contract extension to begin now in order to protect some $5 billion of planned investment in Grasberg. The company believes that the existing contract gives it the option to operate the mine until 2041.

To make matters worse for Freeport, a government ban on exports of copper concentrates is on track to become effective in January 2017. If that ban is enforced, and if Freeport has been unable to negotiate a new deal with the Indonesian government, the value of the Grasberg mine will certainly be less than $16.2 billion. The question for Freeport investors is how much less.

The stock price has been inching higher since hitting a five-year low of around $3.50 in January. Shares closed at $12.29 on Monday, up about 80%. The stock’s 52-week high of $14.20 was posted in late April.

Shares traded down about 0.9% in Tuesday’s premarket session at $12.18. The consensus 12-month price target is $12.07.