NEW YORK -- Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s (FCX)
planned acquisitions would catapult the mining company into the
major league of natural-resource players, Chairman Jim-Bob Moffett
said Wednesday.
Freeport has agreed to buy energy companies McMoRan Exploration
Co. (MMR) and Plains Exploration & Production Co. (PXP) for
about $9 billion.
"It takes us from a midsize player to a major player in both the
resource business and in the mining business," Mr. Moffett said on
a conference call. Mr. Moffett is one of Freeport founders and is
also co-chairman and chief executive of McMoRan Exploration.
"We leapfrog companies like Apache (APA) and Anadarko (APC)...we
leapfrog everybody in the mining business," he said. Freeport is
currently the seventh-largest mining company in the world by market
capitalization.
Freeport said it will pay about $6.9 billion in cash and stock
for Plains and acquire McMoRan for $2.1 billion in cash net of the
36% of McMoRan assets currently owned by Freeport and Plains.
The combined company would be able to "evaluate any
natural-resource play, whether it's mining or oil and gas, and make
sure that we look at investments that bring the most value to
shareholders," Mr. Moffett said. "Nobody will have a better feel
for valuation."
Freeport got into the oil and gas business in the 1970s but sold
many of its assets in that sector in the early 1990s to help fund
development of big new copper and gold discoveries in Indonesia.
The predecessor of what is now McMoRan Exploration was spun off in
1994, with an aim to focus on Gulf of Mexico drilling.
News of Freeport's interest in McMoRan Exploration was earlier
reported by the Financial Times.
Write to Tatyana Shumsky at tatyana.shumsky@dowjones.com
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