Freeport-McMoRan

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Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., or Freeport NYSE: FCX for short, is the world's lowest-cost copper producer and one of the world's largest producers of gold. It is based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Its subsidiaries include PT Freeport Indonesia, PT Irja Eastern Minerals and Atlantic Copper, S.A.

Best known for its Grasberg mine in West Papua, Indonesia, the company is the largest tax payer to the Indonesian government; mines and mills ore containing copper, gold and silver for the world market.

The company's wealth stems from a mining license agreement signed in 1967. The original license sold to the US company Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., including mining rights for 30 km². The company holds a 30 year exclusive mining license for the region from the official opening of the mine (1981). Locals have made several violent attempts to dissuade the mine owners, including blowing up a pipeline in July, but order was quickly restored. In 1989 the mining license was extended to an additional 25,000 km².

In 2003 the company admitted it had been paying the local Indonesian military to keep the native landowners away from the lands it now owns under the current Indonesian government contract. In 2005, The New York Times reported that company records showed the total amount paid between 1998 and 2004 amounted to nearly 20 million USD, distributed among both officers and units, with one individual receiving up to 150,000 USD. The company response was that there was "no alternative to our reliance on the Indonesian military and police in this regard."

Freeport-McMoRan's close ties with the authoritarian Indonesian militia along with the military's heavy-handed tactics in dealing with natives has attracted the attention of many human rights advocates and organizations.

Denise Leith has written a comprehensive history of Freeport's influence, impact, and role in Indonesia entitled "The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto's Indonesia" (2003: University of Hawai'i Press).

On Sunday, November 19, 2006, Freeport-McMoRan announced that it would acquire Phelps Dodge for $25.9 billion in cash and stock to create the world's largest publicly-traded mining company.