PT Freeport's Grasberg metals mine operating well

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc has said its Grasberg copper and gold mining and milling complex in Indonesia was operating ``exceptionally well'' despite world political tensions and low copper prices, Reuters reported on Friday.

New Orleans, Louisiana-based Freeport's main operating unit, PT Freeport Indonesia, mines the massive, low-cost open pit in Irian Jaya, a remote eastern province in the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia.

Freeport McMoRan chairman and chief executive James R. Moffett said in a statement, ``today's world political situation has not affected our operations'' at Grasberg.

Freeport McMoRan is the lowest-cost copper producer in the world. It estimated its 2001 PT Freeport sales to reach about 1.4 billion lbs of copper at a net-cash production cost of less than 10 cents a lb.

The Grasberg milling complex set daily, monthly and quarterly records for ore throughput and gold recoveries in the third quarter, averaging over 244,000 tonnes per day, with gold recoveries of almost 90 percent, Moffett said.

Freeport sees its PT Freeport gold sales this year reaching about 2.5 million ounces.

Meanwhile, world copper prices this week have slipped to about 64 cents a lb, the lowest since June 1999, due to oversupply and soft demand in the world market.

In Indonesia, anti-American sentiment has grown among Muslims this week as U.S. and British air strikes began against Afghanistan, where top suspects behind the Sept 11 plane attacks on American soil are believed to be hiding. (*)