Freeport says it’s on track to restart Indonesia copper mine after deadly mudslide

[NEW YORK] Freeport-McMoRan is making progress on a restart of its sprawling Indonesian copper mine, it said on Thursday (Jan 22), after a deadly mudslide shuttered the operation that’s critical to global supply.

The company has already restarted two unaffected areas of the mine since the incident in September and has laid out a schedule to ramp up copper production at the Grasberg mine to 2027. On Thursday, it reiterated plans to begin a phased restart of an underground area of the mine in the second quarter of this year.

Freeport issued the latest update along with quarterly earnings that beat analyst expectations but projected higher-than-anticipated capital spending for 2026. Shares dipped slightly in New York.

Grasberg is the world’s second-largest copper mine and accounted for 3 per cent of the world’s mined copper before the September mudslide. The accident, which killed seven workers, is one of a string of disruptions at copper mines around the world that have squeezed supply and pushed up prices.

The company declared force majeure on its Indonesian shipments in late September, estimating output would be curbed well into 2026.

Since then, Freeport has incrementally restarted portions of the sprawling mining complex in an effort to return to normal operations by the end of 2027. The company said on Thursday that it expects 85 per cent of its total Grasberg production to return in the second half of this year. Freeport’s shares plummeted following the September incident but have since climbed about 28 per cent as the miner progresses with restart plans.

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“We have been executing on our plan and we have been achieving results,” chief executive officer Kathleen Quirk said on Thursday in a call with investors and analysts.

Freeport churned out 640 million pounds of copper in the fourth quarter of 2025, a considerable drop from previous years due to Grasberg’s closure and slightly lower than analyst expectations. BLOOMBERG