By Tess Stynes

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. said its first-quarter loss widened as the copper miner took another big write-down on its oil-and-gas business.

The company also said that a restructuring of the oil-and-gas business, announced earlier this month, will include a workforce reduction of roughly 25%. Freeport expects to post a charge of about $40 million in the current quarter related to the moves.

Freeport also cut its capital spending estimate for 2016 to roughly $3.3 billion from its previous view for about $3.4 billion.

Freeport, the U.S.'s biggest mining company by market value, has been under pressure from falling commodity prices and activist investor Carl Icahn, who has been pushing the miner to lower costs and reduce debt. Since Mr. Icahn disclosed his initial investment last August, Freeport has suspended its dividend, cut capital spending and announced the resignation of longtime chairman James R. Moffett, an oil wildcatter largely responsible for building its global copper empire.

Chief Executive Richard Adkerson said in prepared remarks Tuesday that Freeport remained focused on improving its balance sheet in the latest quarter and made progress on its asset-divestment program with $1.4 billion in deals since the beginning of the year.

Earlier this month, Freeport's oil-and-gas subsidiary was restructured as one of the company's operating divisions, resulting in the elimination of oil-and-gas executive roles.

In its news release Tuesday, Freeport said the company and its advisers are actively engaged with interested parties to evaluate options for the oil-and-gas business, including possible asset sales or joint-venture arrangements.

Over all, Freeport reported a loss of $4.18 billion, or $3.35 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $2.47 billion, or $2.38 a share. Excluding write-downs of its oil-and-gas operations and other items, the per-share loss was 16 cents. Revenue decreased 15% to $3.53 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a per-share loss of 18 cents and revenue of $3.51 billion.

Write to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 26, 2016 09:02 ET (13:02 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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