美国自由港迈克墨伦铜金矿公司

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　　Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.(代号FCX)2007年03月16日以价值259亿美元现金及股票收购对手Phelps Dodge Corp.的计划已获得2公司股东同意，将造就世界上最大的上市铜生产商。Phelps Dodge的每1股收取88美元现金，总额以180亿美元为限，同时可交换0.67的Freeport普通股，以2007年03月12日收市价计，总共为125.53美元。收购结束后，Freeport大约有3.34亿上市股票，该公司在2006年12月宣布收购计划时表示，Phelps Dodge 股东将拥有合并公司的38%股份。

　　新公司名为Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold，由Freeport的总裁兼行政总监艾克森 (Richard Adkerson)主持大局，总部设於凤凰城。不过一些作业会沿用Phelps Dodge名义，也要继续用新奥尔良办公室从事印尼 Grasberg矿的行政及会计作业，该矿是世界最大的贵金属矿。

　　Freeport发言人普洛布(Greg Probst)表示，相信不会裁员或关闭工厂，因为两公司的业务并未重复。Freeport雇用的15,000人大部分在印尼工作，Phelps Dodge在全球作业，有20,000名左右员工，它正在秘鲁Cerro Verde矿进行耗资8.5 亿美元的扩充计划，另耗资5.5亿美元在亚利桑那州沙福特(Safford)附近开发铜矿，并预备用6.5亿美元开发刚果民主共和国的 Tenke Fungurme铜矿。

　　Freeport在2006年收入57.9亿美元而盈利14亿美元，该股在纽约证券交易所上涨36美仙，报56.38美元。Phelps Dodge去年收入119.1亿美元而盈利30.2亿美元，其股价上涨46美仙，报125.71美元。

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., （FMCG，nyse:FCX）通常简称自由港，是世界上成本最低的铜生产商，也是世界上最大的黄金生产商之一。该公司原总部位于路易斯安那州新奥尔良，但在2007年收购铜生产商菲尔普斯·道奇后，最近将总部迁至亚利桑那州凤凰城。除菲尔普斯道奇外，其子公司还包括印尼自由港PT、伊尔加东部矿业公司PT Irja Eastern Minerals和大西洋铜矿公司S.A.自由港是世界上最大的公开交易铜和钼生产商。

Best known for its Grasberg mine in Papua (Indonesian province), Indonesia, the company is the largest taxpayer to the Indonesian government; it mines and mills ore containing copper, gold, molybdenum and silver for the world market. Richard C. Adkerson is President and Chief Executive Officer of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and James R. Moffett is the company's Chairman.

McMoRan Exploration Company is a separately traded firm with some shared management with Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. . Richard C. Adkerson and James R. Moffett are co-chairmen of McMoRan Exploration. McMoRan Exploration, an oil and gas exploration and production firm based in New Orleans, Louisiana, was created in 1998 by the merger of McMoRan Oil & Gas and Freeport-McMoRan Sulphur. McMoRan Exploration recently acquired the famed Blackbeard offshore prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, that Exxon Mobil Corp. abandoned in 2006 after drilling a 30,000 foot dry hole. McMoRan Exploration's well is currently (7/21/08) below 32,550 feet, the deepest penetration of the earth ever recorded.

The company was founded as the Freeport Sulphur Company in 1912, and the company founded Freeport, Texas that same year, near its new sulphur mines, then the largest in the world . Freeport pioneered mining sulphur by the Frasch Process at mines along the US Gulf Coast. Freeport Sulphur began to diversify in 1931, purchasing maganese deposits in Oriente, Cuba. The company produced nickel during WW2, and potash in the 1950s. In 1955, Freeport invested $119 million in constructing a nickel -cobalt mine at Moa Bay, Cuba and a refinery at Port Nickel, Louisiana. In 1960 the Fidel Castro government nationalized the Cuban facility.

In 1956, the company formed Freeport Oil Company, and sold a Louisiana oil discovery for $100 million in 1958. In 1961, the company entered the kaolin business, and in 1964 formed Freeport of Australia to pursue mining opportunities there and in the surrounding Pacific Ocean region. In 1960, a team of Freeport geologists confirmed the Dutch discovery of the rich Grasberg_mine copper and gold discovery, located in extremely rugged, remote country in the Jayawijaya Mountains, in then-Netherlands New Guinea. In 1966, Freeport founded Freeport Indonesia, Inc. and negotiated a contract with the Indonesian government, which had taken over the former Dutch colony in 1963, to develop the Ertsberg deposit. In their feasibilty study, Freeport geologists estimated that the orebody totaled 33 million tons averaging 2.5% copper. The Ertsberg was the largest above-ground copper deposit ever discovered.

Construction of an open pit mine began in May 1970, and in mid-1973 the new Ertsberg mine was declared fully operational. Officials at Bechtel, the primary contractor on the project,called mine development at Ertsberg "the most difficult engineering project they had ever undertaken." The many challenges included building a 101 kilometer long access road (a project that required boring kilometer long tunnels through two mountains) and constructing the world's longest single span aerial tramway. Aerial tramways were needed to move people, supplies, and ore because a 2,000 foot cliff separates the Ertsberg mine (at 12,000 feet elevation) from the mill (at 10,000 feet). Getting copper concentrate from that mill to the shipping port required installation of a 109-kilometer long slurry pipeline - then the world's longest.

Mine construction and startup cost about US$200 million. The development of the Ertsberg District was an engineering marvel, but the mine's early financial performance was disappointing. Depressed copper prices and high operating costs kept the operation marginal during the 1970s.

In 1971 the company changed its name to Freeport Minerals Company (FMC) to reflect its role as a diversified mineral producer. FMC formed Freeport Gold Company in 1981 to operate a rich new gold discovery at Jerrit Canyon, Nevada.

McMoRan Oil & Gas was formed in 1967 by three partners, including James R. (Jim Bob) Moffett, the present CEO of FMCG. During the 1970s, the company acquired a reputation as an aggressive petroleum explorer with cost-efficient drilling programs. It formed drilling partnerships with several companies, including Freeport. In 1981 Freeport Minerals merged with McMoRan Oil & Gas to form Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

In 1982 Freeport Gold Company was the world's largest gold producer, producing 196,000 ounces of gold in its first full year of operation.

By 1989 Freeport-McMoRan had two world-class mines to develop: the new discovery at Grasberg, Indonesia, with the world's largest gold ore reserve, and one of the world's largest copper reserves; and the Main Pass sulfur-oil-gas deposit offshore from Louisiana, with estimated reserves totalling 67 million tonnes of sulfur, 39 million barrels of oil, and seven billion cubic feet of natural gas. These were rich deposits, but would be very expensive to develop. Freeport sold about $1.5 billion in assets to finance the development of these two projects.

By 1991, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. was basically a holding company for its two principal assets, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FMCG) and Freeport-McMoRan Resource Partners, which ran the sulphur and fertilizer business. Freeport's focus was was to raise enough cash to finance the development of the huge finds at Grasberg and Main Pass. Both of these assets got better the more they were studied: Main Pass was the second largest recoverable sulphur reserve then known, and Grasberg's ore reserves -- and profit potential -- were truly enormous.

In 1994 Freeport-McMoRan Spin out its entire interest in Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, which became an independent company, fully focussed on the Indonesian operation. In 1997 Freeport-McMoRan Inc., the former parent company, was itself acquired by The Mosaic Company, a large fertilizer producer.

In 1997 the company exposed the Bre-X Gold Scandal. Brought in by the Indonesian government, Freeport was not able to correlate Bre-X's fraudulent claims to finding the largest gold mine ever discovered; Bre-X subsequently went bankrupt.

The Grasberg mine, FMCG'S crown jewel, soon became a source of violent trouble and terrible publicity , which continues today. It is also the world's most profitable mine.

North American operations:

• Morenci, Arizona, 85% owned by FMCG (copper)
• Bagdad, Arizona, 100% owned (copper, molybdenum)
• Sahuarita, Arizona, 100% owned (copper, molybdenum)
• Miami, Arizona, 100% owned (copper)
• Safford, Arizona, 100% owned (copper)
• El Chino mine, New Mexico, 100% owned (copper, molybdenum)
• Tyrone, New Mexico, 100% owned (copper)
• Henderson Mine, Empire, Colorado 100% owned (molybdenum)
• Climax, Colorado (molybdenum)

South American operations:

• Candelaria/Ojos del Salado, Chile, 80% owned by FMCG (copper)
• El Abra, Chile, 51% owned (copper)
• Cerro Verde, Peru, 53.6% owned (copper, molybdenum)

European operations:

• Atlantic Copper , copper refinery in Huelva, Spain

African project:

• Tenke Fungurume, Democratic Republic of Congo (copper, cobalt)

Asian operations:

• Grasberg mine, Papua (Indonesian province), Indonesia, 76.6% owned by FMCG (through subsidiaries) (copper, gold, silver)

In 2003 Freeport admitted it had been paying the local Indonesian military and police to keep the native landowners away from the lands it develops under the current Indonesian government contract; Freeport argues that this is necessary to provide security to its employees, both local and foreign.

In 2005, the New York Times reported that company records showed the total amount paid between 1998 and 2004 amounted to nearly US$20 million, distributed among both officers and units, with one individual receiving up to US$150,000. The company response was that there was "no alternative to our reliance on the Indonesian military and police in this regard", and that the support provided was not for individuals, but rather for infrastructure, food, housing, fuel, travel, vehicle repairs and allowances to cover incidental and administrative costs.

In contending that the money went to the government and not to individual officers, "the statements amount to a knowingly misleading representation by Freeport," the comptroller of the New York City Pension Funds said. While in Indonesia, Juwono Sudarsono, the civilian defense minister, said that it is illegal under Indonesian law for foreign companies to pay soldiers.

The New York City comptroller has charged that Freeport-McMoRan knowingly made "false or misleading" statements about payments to the Indonesian military and might have filed false proxy statements in violation of the Securities Exchange Act. He has also stated that he believed the company might have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids U.S. companies to bribe foreign officials. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are currently investigating these claims.

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. However, by the late 1990s, after over twenty five years operating in Papua without recognising the land rights of the traditional peoples it finally announced recognition and established agreements with various Papuan tribes.

Denise Leith has written a comprehensive history of Freeport's influence, impact, and role in Indonesia ^[1]. The book has received generally favorable reviews as a fair and balanced treatment of the issue.

1. ↑ Denise Leith, 2002, The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto's Indonesia, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 0824825667