Japan’s copper smelters expect Freeport shipments May-June

Japan's major copper smelters said on Thursday they expected copper concentrate shipments from the giant Grasberg mine in Indonesia, hit by a rock slide in December, to resume in May or June, Bisnis Indonesia newspaper reported in its Friday edition.

They said U.S.-based Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc, whose Indonesian unit, PT Freeport Indonesia, operates the Grasberg mine, had informed them that total 2004 deliveries of copper concentrate would be around 25 percent less than contracted amount.

Freeport declared force majeure on some deliveries of copper concentrate, the key raw material for producing copper, after the rockslide, on December 12.

"Our first shipment (from Freeport) is scheduled for May," an official at one major Japanese copper smelter said in Singapore. The shipment would comprise around 20,000 dry metric tons of copper concentrate.

He said the smelter had been informed by Freeport it would receive its second shipment in September and three further shipments in the fourth quarter of the year.

He said his smelter had been informed it would receive around 90,000 dry metric tons of copper concentrate in 2004, down from around 120,000 tons scheduled prior to Freeport's declaration of force majeure.

Two other leading Japanese buyers of copper concentrate had been informed on Wednesday they would each receive their first term shipments of the year in June, said another smelter official.

He said each of the two buyers would receive 10,000 dry metric tons of copper concentrate in the June shipments.

Total deliveries in 2004 from Freeport to the two buyers were expected to be around 123,000 tons, he said, adding this was around 25 percent less than had previously been contracted.

One of the buyers could expect a second shipment in August and the other buyer would receive its second delivery in September, he said. A further three or four shipments each were scheduled for the fourth quarter.

Freeport in late January lowered its forecast for 2004 copper sales from Grasberg to 1.0 billion pounds (453,600 tons) of contained copper in concentrate, down from 1.4 billion pounds.

The company said it expected to return to mining Grasberg's key ore areas during the second quarter of the year but that it would defer some higher-grade ore mining to future periods.

The majority of this deferred ore would be mined in 2005, Freeport said. (*)