Good morning, hello, everybody again. Thank you. For those of us who are just joining now, I will again welcome you to our 40th Annual Bank of America Global Metals Mining and Steel Conference. I'm Lawson Winder, North American Senior Metals and Mining Analyst. It is my distinct pleasure to have with me today from Freeport-McMoRan, Chair and Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson. Now, having been part of Freeport, Richard, for since 1989, you're synonymous with the company and also synonymous with copper. Richard, welcome to the 2023 edition of our conference. Thank you very much. Actually, I did a lot of work with Freeport before I joined those so many years ago. It's great to be back here at this conference. A lot of memories, a lot of good times, and we really appreciate Bank of America Merrill Lynch for sponsoring. Thank you. Well, Richard, to be honest with you, it wouldn't be the same without you. You've been to almost every edition of this conference since it started. Thank you. Yeah, I'm older than dirt. Where I wanted to start, Richard, was with the copper price to get your view on the copper market. A lot of investors are concerned with a new wave of supply coming just at the same time as the global economy seems to be maybe slowing somewhat. How do you view these sort of factors in the copper market, and do you think there's a risk of a downturn in the copper price in the next 12 months? The price is too low. Start with that. Mike did a great job talking about a company as complex as BHP. Freeport is so simple. I mean, we have had now a 20-year focus on the strategy we have now of being committed to copper. We built a company around it, got a great set of assets. You know, all these years in the natural resource business, my earlier years were in the oil and gas business, has taught me to prepare for the long run and position your company to live through uncertainties in the short run. You all know more about what to expect in the near-term economy from all the complications we have, inflation in China and situation in Europe, central bank policies and all of that. That creates a lot of uncertainty near-term. At Freeport, we prepare ourselves to deal with it by having a strong balance sheet, which we didn't always have, but we do now. That's, you know, that's a great thing for a high operating leverage company like ours to have a strong balance sheet to deal with whatever you have to deal with. Then we've had experience. Our team's been together for a very long period of time, very focused on the assets that we now manage, and we have experience in adjusting, flexing those assets to deal with things. People get frustrated with me sometimes because they say, "You've been in this so long. Surely you know what's gonna happen next year." I really don't let myself think about that. I am increasingly confident, about this being the right business for Freeport to be in the copper business. That was developed years ago, and now it's kind of consistent with what other companies in the industry are saying. It's, there are new projects coming on. In fact, this year was supposed to be a year of major surpluses. You go back a couple of years ago and people were predicting major surpluses this year, and they're not occurring. There's new production coming on. After that new production comes on, the pipeline is pretty bare, though. You know, it's really bare. This is an industry that you can't turn a spigot on and get new production quickly. We have very substantial reserves and resources, and we know how long it would take us to get them engineered, permitted, structured to go forward. I continue to believe that the market's gonna be challenged to meet the growing demands for copper. Everywhere you go, people are now talking about artificial intelligence and electrification. You know, last year before last, we were all talking about climate change investments. However you look at the world today, it's becoming more electric. 2/3 of copper or more goes into electricity. That demand is growing, and I'm still a believer in long-term structural growth from, you know, improving economies in the global world. I mean, there's gonna be ups and downs with that. I'm really confident about our strategy, confident about the way we're running it, and I've never felt better about Freeport's business. That's fantastic. I also wanted to ask about M&A. It's been a recurring theme the last little while, but also at this conference. I wanted to ask, has Freeport been active in evaluating M&A opportunities? Do you look at M&A outside of copper? I'm thinking of like molybdenum or gold, like assets where you have really strong businesses today. Or do you look at any other decarbonization-related metals? If I might also ask a follow-up, perhaps prematurely, but I'd also like you to address the question: Is Freeport an M&A target? I've been saying for a number of years now that M&A was coming to our industry. We've got companies that have really strong financial resources. They have copper as a priority and have had copper as a priority for years. It's striking the lack of growth in copper. These well-financed, technically strong companies have been able to achieve over 20 years. That's, I think, inevitably gonna lead to M&A activity. You also look over your shoulder, and you look at the industry's history with M&A, and it's not very pretty, including our company, you know, which 10 years ago made a, you know, a bad decision to invest in the oil and gas business. Almost every company's made bad M&A deals. That's made managements reluctant, boards reluctant to do things, so that's a barrier. In the copper business, you know, I don't know if you follow us closely, I became Chairman two years ago, added six new directors, including four CEOs or retired CEOs. Two of them came from the oil and gas business. We've been talking about how copper is different. You can build up a oil and gas business by starting small and getting bigger. You don't see that happening in the copper business. We have a saying at Freeport, "Big mines get bigger, and small mines get smaller." The companies that own the best mines today don't wanna give them up. You know, it's not a asset-traded industry of significance to the global to the total industry picture. There's some that happens. We at Freeport don't have growth through M&A as part of our strategy. We are focused on our internal development of our resources and our reserves through brownfield expansions, that's what the focus of our business is on. Where M&A might happen, yes, we know everything. Your bankers and other bankers line up our doors. We know, you know, that's the way bankers work. We're aware of everything that goes on in the industry and follow it closely. Our successful game-changing creation of modern Freeport transaction in 2007 with Phelps Dodge was not a strategic plan to do that. It was an opportunity that arose. I think the best deals are deals when you have an opportunity that comes together, and you take advantage of it. Too often, when management teams or boards say strategically, we wanna do this or that, those deals are forced and often don't turn out well. We're not counting on it. You know, new deals have to compete with our own resource development opportunities, where we capture all the value for that. We don't get much value at all in our shares today from our undeveloped reserves and resources. You know, at today's stock price level, we believe that Freeport stock is a good investment. You know, if we have a financial policy that includes dividends and share buybacks and depending on cash flow, it'd be hard-pressed for our acquisition opportunity to compete for us in terms of investing in our own shares. It's unlikely, but if the right opportunity came, we're prepared to talk about it. Not interested in gold. I mean, you know, Grasberg is the largest single gold mine in the world. That's a whole different industry. The reinvestment risk, the nature of the assets, and so forth, is just not something we see as a fit. At one point, we were a company that was 2/3 copper and one-third gold, and it was tough to sell to investors, you know, because of the different objectives in gold and copper investors. The gold industry is, it's own world and not our world. molybdenum, we're the world's largest producer. It's a specialty metal. We're fine with where we are today, and we'll make money out of it and continue just to manage that. Copper is our focus, and that's what Freeport's all about. Yeah, that's very clear. Now, you touched on the outlook for Freeport and going forward, the assets that you have in your portfolio. Maybe if you could just speak to some of the goals that Freeport has for the next five, 10 years and where you see the company heading. Well, the backbone of Freeport's execution, and we've shown we can do that. You know, we looked at the risk, I mean, and all our shareholders and people who follow the industry looked at the risk we had of converting the Grasberg mine from this enormous open pit operation to the world's largest underground mine. It was a 20+ year challenge. We met the challenge. Today, you look at our numbers. I mean, it's the second-largest copper mine in the world, and our net cash costs were negative in the first quarter and project to be negative for the year. You know. I think we said -$0.15 a pound. Think about having the second-largest copper mine in the world with a negative cash cost. It's a great asset to build a company around. Execution in the Americas is a different deal. Lower, lower grade mines. You know, challenges like we faced in the first quarter in Peru and in the U.S. with weather events and labor challenges. The execution there is really important to continue to be profitable with low cost, low grade mines. We're really excited about this opportunity that leaching is providing Freeport. Morenci, largest mine in North America, is the world's largest leaching operation. Freeport's legacy has been the development of oxide leaching over the years. We have these enormous active leach stacks. Beyond that, historical inactive leach stacks have a lot of copper in it. Our team is just tremendously excited about that. You know, got a near-term target. We talk about pounds, but it's 200 million pounds. We've got a medium-term target to raise that to 800 million pounds. That's 800 million pounds of copper. You know, you look at what the industry is investing in new mines today. That's one thing that gives you pause. You look at, you know, how budgets are overrun, what the cost of acquisitions are. Here we have this sitting right there with virtually no capital to invest in. No permitting, 'cause the stacks are permitted. No carbon emissions and recovering that much copper. I mean, that's really meaningful. Beyond that, we've got these historical stacks. You know, we're looking at competing with copper concentrating and resource development. Our internal team is very excited about it. We're looking at a number of different technologies for additives, which I think a lot of investors are over-focusing on, but it's more of the physical aspects of it. We're using heat in a way to free up more copper. What we're really doing that's exciting is using technology to measure what's going on in these huge leach stacks. They have different mineralogy within the same stack, so different additives, different approaches might work. Our team's really excited. Historically, you'd have a big stack, you'd sprinkle acid and water on it, and whatever came out, came out. Now we're putting probes in to measure what's going on inside the stacks and adjusting operations and getting more out of it. As I said, low capital. Low capital and a good bit of copper. I'm glad you touched on that. Last year, in Miami, Kathleen was with us, and she talked about the 200 million pounds. You're now at, you know, talking about 800 million pounds of potential production from leaching. How big can that get? What's the ultimate tankhouse capacity that Freeport has and? Well, tankhouse capacity is not a problem. Yeah. I think we got huge amount of excess capacity now. Tankhouses aren't very expensive to build. Right. They're not like building a concentrator. That's not gonna be the constraint. It's emerging technology. It takes time to see what works and what doesn't work. We got, you know, scientists working in our laboratories going through that now. We've got joint venture relationships with other companies to work together on it. If you follow us, At Freeport, we got a real strong sense of being conservative in our financial reporting and our outlook. We're, you know, we wanna underpromise, overdeliver. This is something that we just had our board out to Morenci, and I was so gratified to see our technical guys being so excited about it. As I said, these leach stacks are enormous, and there's a lot of copper in it. We think almost 20 billion pounds in the active leach stacks we have at Morenci right now. How much of that we can get is to be determined. I mean, that's what these studies, technology and experience is gonna show us. Really exciting stuff. Beyond that, you know, we've got some brownfield development projects that are in the works that are gonna take time like everybody's do. You know, the project in Chile that we have in partnership with Codelco is, we've been doing work on it for some times, but, you know, we're waiting to see what unfolds in Chile in the political process to determine how aggressive to pursue that. We've got a, you know, a straightforward project at our Bagdad Mine in northwest Arizona, where we build a new concentrator and add significant production. We got. The one thing I'd like for y'all to take away from here, because at one point, the copper business in the U.S. was considered to be dead. It's a great place to operate now. It is a great place. You know, you don't have a Grasberg-type grades to deal with. We own all of our land in the U.S., virtually all of it in fee. We don't have any royalties. No royalties. The current U.S. tax law is incremental tax, federal tax rate's like 12%. That law may change, but that's what it is today. The only blessing we got out of our oil and gas venture was a big tax loss carry-forward. You look at that, and then we have community support. We worked hard to gain the support at Freeport of local communities, state governments, regulatory agencies, Native American groups. Permitting takes time. That's what we're working with the U.S. government to try to expedite. Not arguing to change permitting standards so much, but to expedite the process so that you can move quicker. It's a great place to operate, and it's gonna be a huge part of the future of Freeport, to see how that's developed. I can't envision a scenario other than a world war or some huge global economic catastrophe where we don't have a higher copper price in the future. To have these low-grade mines, the leverage to copper price is enormous. We get higher copper prices, we manage the cost, we make a lot of money. That's a big part of our future. That's music to everybody's ears. I wanted to pivot to Grasberg and just ask you. There's been a lot of noise around that asset the last little while. I mean, We've been there 55 years, and I've been going there over 30 years. Yes. A lot less noise than it historically has been because the success we've had not only with developing the underground mine, and you know, I mean, this is a tough business. Grasberg is a tough place to operate. You know, it's high altitude. The original mine was at 3,500 meters. The road leading up to Grasberg is the wettest spot on Earth according to the United Nations. It rains 200-400 inches a year there. It's not new. We had a major water event in our mill site. Our systems protected the mill. The mill wasn't damaged. We had to clean up in the first quarter. It affected our production volumes. Team came back strongly in March. Boy, they're just doing great right now. Operationally, it's great. Got a great workforce. We don't have the challenges we used to have. The relationship now with the government of Indonesia, this is what's so gratifying with me. Talk to every company here, and they'll, you know, everybody will talk about how tough it is to deal with resources over the long term in emerging nations. I mean, everywhere you have to deal with that. It was a challenge at Grasberg, but we reached a deal in 2018 where the government was able to increase its equity ownership interest in our Indonesian affiliate, PT Freeport Indonesia, by principally by acquiring Rio Tinto's joint venture interest. We agreed to build a smelter after years of arguing not to, and now it's huge construction site. We're over 60% complete. It'll be the world's largest single line smelter. Very modern, efficient facility. In return, we secured the rights of FCX to operate the business, which we considered important. We've got stability in taxes and royalties going forward, and it's been a huge success for the government. They made a lot of money. You just look at what's gone on since the end of 2018 and the expanding production, strong prices and so forth. Now we're talking about extending the right to operate beyond 2041. I keep saying it's a long-term business. That'll be a huge positive for all parties. It makes no sense. The President of Indonesia visited our site in late August, early January, and just he learned so much and recognizes that it makes no interest for any party to not manage this asset as a long-term development. This is not a coal mine. You can't stop mining, somebody come in and pick it up and start it up. This is a block cave operation. We really haven't identified the resource beyond 2041. In developing the mine plan to 2041, we've identified resources that extend further, but we've had that 2041 date all along. It was in our 1991 contract. We haven't done. One of the things Freeport made so much value out of after it acquired Phelps Dodge was to do extensive delineation drilling. That's where these resources we're talking about now came from. We haven't done that at Grasberg. During all my years there, the asset just keeps getting bigger and bigger. So now, if we have the rights to operate beyond 2041, we already started actually doing drilling to understand what that resource is. One thing that's happened over the years, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Now you say, "What's the PV of that?" PV in mining industry is a long-lived asset that gives you a base of assurance for long-lived, profitable operations, is a real key to building the rest of your business. If you have that in place, then you can be more aggressive in developing other opportunities. With that, we still have some work to do, and always it's complicated to deal with regulations and laws and other issues. It's not done yet, but I have confidence it will be done. When it happens, it will be an extraordinary accord in the long run. In the long run. Make the rest of our business more valuable. Second-largest copper mine in the world, - $0.15 a pound to produce it. It's remarkable. I wanted to see if the audience had any questions and maybe just put up your hand if you do, and we will find a mic for you. In the meantime, Richard, could you just address one more thing on Grasberg, that is what is it that we're seeing in the news about this 10% interest that the government wants out of Grasberg? Well, we have no rights beyond 2041. Mm-hmm. I mean, right now, that's it. For us to get a deal that makes sense for the government, there has to be a give and take, just like we did in 2018. We're prepared to do that. That would be post 2041. Yeah. It's not now. That would be part of the cost of us getting those rights to go forward. We would work on a cost reimbursement situation so that it's a fair deal for our shareholders. This is not like leading up to 2018 when we had to get it solved. I mean, this is a deal we'll do if it creates value for Freeport shareholders. It's a deal the government will do if it creates value for the government. We have to work with them together. The relationships are so much better than they've ever been. I'm, you know, the conversations have been very positive. The atmosphere is very positive, and we're gonna work to keep it that way. Joko Widodo's done a great job, I believe, in my opinion, in leading that country through difficult times. He fully appreciates, understands what's happened there. He was taken aback by the fact that 98% of our workers are Indonesian out of a workforce of 25,000-30,000 people. 40% of our workers are Papuan. Indonesians are in senior management position now. The partnership from us having an Indonesian operation and bringing to the table from FCX's standpoint, a leading global copper company from a technology standpoint, is really what's making this work in the way that it's working. We give attention to the local workers. We give attention to local communities, to the government. We can't succeed unless they succeed. You know, that's a lesson that I've learned over the last 30 years. Well, it seems like it's been very successful. I apologize, everybody, but we are at a time, and I'm sorry, Richard, we are at a time. We have to leave it there. Please, everybody, join me in thanking Richard for being here. Thank you, all.