Freeport-McMoRan Beats Estimates as Copper, Gold Production Rise

   By Micah Maidenberg

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX) reported its third-quarter profit nearly doubled from a year earlier as the miner increased its output of copper, its most important product, even though realized prices for the red metal sagged.

Earnings were $556 million in the third quarter, or 38 cents a share, up from $280 million, or 19 cents a share, a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, Freeport earned 35 cents a share, more than the 33 cents a share analysts polled by FactSet expected.

Sales rose 14% to $4.91 billion. Analysts forecasted $4.5 billion.

For the full year, Freeport maintained its earlier forecast for copper sales volumes of about 3.8 billion pounds. It also on Wednesday guided sales of 2.45 million ounces of gold, slightly higher than its earlier guidance of 2.4 million ounces. Freeport said it still expects sales of 95 million pounds molybdenum, in line with the previous forecast.

Freeport reported that in the third quarter its average realized price per pound of copper was $2.80, down from $2.94 a year ago. It produced slightly more than 1 billion pounds of copper in the period, up from 996 million pounds in the third quarter of 2017. Gold production rose to 760,000 pounds, up from 418,000 pounds a year earlier.

Write to Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 24, 2018 08:41 ET (12:41 GMT)

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