Freeport's Grasberg mine has one of the biggest copper and gold reserves in the world.
He also found the world's largest gold and copper mine: the Grasberg Mine in Indonesia.
The company cut its full-year copper production outlook in response to continued disruptions in its cash-cow, the Grasberg mine.
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Mining firm Freeport said at least four miners were rescued at its Grasberg mine after an underground tunnel collapsed early on Tuesday.
The production of gold from the Grasberg mine alone is expected to rise by 40% higher than the levels seen in 2012.
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Police say four miners died and 10 others were evacuated after the tunnel caved in at Freeport's Grasberg mine, in the eastern province of Papua.
Apart from a cooling global economy and the prospects of soft landing in China, Freeport faced labor disputes, particularly in its Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
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Moffett was the founder and chairman of Freeport-McMoRan in 1981, and in 1988 led the company to a giant gold discovery at the Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
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He has also told us he plans to follow the model he used for the development of the Grasberg Mine at Freeport Copper and Gold (FCX) years ago.
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Freeport blamed this drop largely on changes to mine plans at the Grasberg mine in Indonesia, which delayed access to higher-grade material, and a slower-than-expected ramp-up at the Deep Ore Zone underground mind.
The growth in production next year will come from the Grasberg mine in Indonesia as well as brownfield expansion programs at Morenci in North America, Cerro Verde in South America, and Tenke Fungurume in Africa.
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Freeport Indonesia said in February that it expected output from the Grasberg mine to rise 30% this year, after falling around 40% last year due to strikes and its mining an area with lower mineral content.
This Grasberg news came when the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah was already shut down after a landslide last month.
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Based in Pheonix, Phelps Dodge has copper mining operations in the U.S., Chile, Peru and Congo, while New Orleans-based Freeport operates the vast open-pit Grasberg gold, copper, and silver mine in Indonesia, and has reserves of about 37 billion pounds of copper and 40 million ounces of gold.
The collapse occurred at the Big Gossan underground mine, about a kilometer away from Grasberg.
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