Freeport CEO: Congo deadline "a challenge"

By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It will be "challenging" for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX.N: 株価, 企業情報, レポート) to meet its target date to start mining in Democratic Congo by next year, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

Although the political situation in the central African nation has stabilized recently, much infrastructure is "non-existent" and has to be built before the company can begin producing copper and cobalt from its vast Tenke Fungurume project, Richard Adkerson said.

"It's a real challenge and if we can meet that target I would be very happy with that," he told the Reuters Global Mining and Steel Summit when asked if production would start in the last quarter of 2008, as it has said.

Freeport-McMoRan, the world's largest publicly traded copper company, acquired Tenke Fungurume when it bought mining rival Phelps Dodge for $25.9 billion earlier this year.

Asked if it was on track to meet its goal of producing 115,000 tonnes of copper and 8,000 tonnes of cobalt per year in 2009, Adkerson said: "That's what the initial project is designed to produce, so that's what we're working towards producing. (But) The timing issue is challenging."

In an earlier interview, Colin Benner, vice chairman of Lundin Mining (LUN.TO: 株価, 企業情報, レポート), which will be a minority partner in the project, said Freeport wanted to quadruple output in 7 years.

"Freeport has indicated that they would like to double that (output) by 2011 and double it again by 2015," Benner told the Reuters Summit by telephone from Vancouver.