Freeport-McMoRan

Freeport-McMoRan Inc., often called Freeport, is an American mining company based in the Freeport-McMoRan Center, in Phoenix, Arizona. The company is the world's largest producer of molybdenum, a major copper producer and operates the world's largest gold mine, the Grasberg mine in Papua, Indonesia. It was founded 1912 by the son of a Swedish banker to develop sulfur mining along the U.S. Gulf Coast concurrently with Freeport, Texas. In 1913, it incorporated as a vertically integrated holding company including numerous subsidiaries like gas and light, railroad, oil from Tampico, Mexico, and a refinery. After 1930, the company diversified by buying into manganese mines, nickel during World War II, potash and the Cuban American Manganese Corporationin the 1950s. Since 1967, the company has mined the Ertsberg deposit of gold and copper in the Grasberg mine, where since 2017 it has been holding a 49% interest. In the 1990s the Rio Tinto Group invested in Freeport and IMC Group acquired its fertilizer business. The multinational company which owns subsidiaries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa has caused extensive, long-term and irreversible environmental damage in areas, where it has operated. It has been criticized for violating human rights in Papua. In 2018, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold along with 90 additional Fortune 500 companies paid no federal taxes as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. In July 2026, Freeport-McMoRan projected long-term growth driven by a forecasted 50% increase in global copper demand by 2040, supporting electric vehicle and clean energy technologies.