The Covid-19 pandemic may well provide Freeport-McMoRan with a silver lining it had never expected.
The US copper producer is discussing with the government of Indonesia what should be done with the planned smelter in the Gresik region in the province of East Java.
It has been
forced to delay the completion timeline of December 2023 for the plant, due both to Covid-19-related disruptions to the work and travel schedules of international contractors, and to the current limitations on access to the proposed site.
The company has never made a secret of the fact that it believes the construction of a new copper smelter in Indonesia would be extremely uneconomical for the government.
Freeport chief executive...