Earnings Labs

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 26, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Freeport-McMoRan Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Kathleen Quirk, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, ma'am. Kathleen L. Quirk - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Thank you. Good morning, everyone and welcome to the Freeport-McMoRan second quarter 2016 earnings conference call. Our results were released earlier this morning and a copy of the press release and slides for today's call are available on our website at fcx.com. Our conference call today is being broadcast live on the Internet, and anyone may listen to the call by accessing our website homepage and clicking on the webcast link for the conference call. In addition to analysts and investors, the financial press has been invited to listen to today's call and a replay of the webcast will be available on our website later today. Before we begin our comments, we'd like to remind everyone that today's press release and certain of our comments on the call include forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially. We'd like to refer everyone to the cautionary language included in our press release and presentation materials and to the risk factors described in our 2015 Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. On the call today are Richard Adkerson, Chief Executive Officer of FCX; and Red Conger, President of Americas and Africa. I'll start by briefly summarizing the financial results, and then turn the call over to Richard, who will review our recent performance and outlook. As usual, we'll open our – after our remarks, we'll open the call up for questions. Today, FCX…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. I was wondering if we could get a bit more color on Grasberg, specifically your five-year outlook for production really hasn't changed that much the last couple quarters, I'm just wondering how we should think about that production profile as you differ CapEx spending given the uncertainty on the COW extension. I mean at some point I would think that's going to have some impact on that, sort of post 2017 outlook, any color there would be extremely helpful. Thank you. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: All right, Orest. Yeah, yeah, that – you know, that's a good point. While we have found some ways and we continue to search for ways to differ capital, we changed the mine plants and have done certain things. What we have not done yet, what we have not done yet is differ the necessary steps that would allow us to begin ramping up the Grasberg block cave production once the pit is completed, now that would be early 2018. So the balancing act and this has been a major point of focus for us in the first half of the year. I went to Grasberg and I sat down with our team, we did a detailed review of what it would mean if we were simply to defer the spending of the $1 billion a year that we've been spending recently to develop this underground resource. What would happen, it would be significant layoffs and we're over 90% of the economy in Mimika. The resulting social disruptions there, which is – which are a significant concern are unknown. If for sure we do what you just said, it would result in a deferral for the ramp up of the Grasberg block cave. And once you did mobilize the team that's working on this, remobilizing that team and coming back in would be a significant exercise beyond just the time of spending it. And that would have a major negative impact as I said, both on us and on the government. Now we are basing our decision to do this on the assurances we've received from the government in recent years, but most clearly articulated in the October 8 letter last year that they will extend our contract. And recent – my recent discussions with the highest level of officials in the government reaffirmed that commitment to doing that. So, we are saying that we need to have that done in the near-term, explaining to them the consequences if we – to them as well to us of deferring those expenditures but to date we have not made that major decision. So, we're online – that work by the way has gone exceedingly well. And the underlying economics are strongly in favor of us doing what we're doing.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Is there a specific sort of drop dead date in your mind that if you don't receive the COW extension by a certain point in time, you will sort of be forced to pullback the CapEx spend? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: There are some important dates along that line. One had been this August 8 this year, in the near-term for getting the extension of our export permit. We've been given assurance we'll get that. There is also an existing regulation in Indonesia. It's a government regulation, not part of the mining law that prohibits exports beginning in January 2017. That regulation is going to have to be changed or else that would be a major trigger point for us. And our contract provides that if the government takes actions in any way, but through large regulations that provides – that is inconsistent with our contract, then we have legal rights to pursue damages against that. We do not want to do that, we want to find a cooperative way of working this out with the government. The government is telling us they want to find a cooperative way of doing it so we're going to take advantage of this common ground that we now have to deal with it. But those, in response to your question, Orest, so that are the real trigger dates for us.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

And just so I remember, so the beginning of 2017 officially the Indonesia has banned all non-processed exports, is that correct? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's correct. That was – they had this 2009 mining law that was aimed at Indonesia exports of ore. We originally thought it didn't apply to copper concentrate. Two years later, there was a regulation passed that extended it to copper concentrate, and there was a regulation that said, no exports of this ore would be allowed beyond January 2017.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Okay. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: There is a lot of pressures economically in Indonesia right now for them to relax that. The country financially would be harmed significantly by banning exports, and we don't think they're likely to do that.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you. And just as a quick follow-up. The reduction in Africa sales guidance for copper this year, does that reflect an actual reduction in your volume or is that just the closing date, affected by the closing date of 10-K, i.e., you think it's going to close before year-end? Kathleen L. Quirk - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah. That's what it is. We've forecast through a fourth quarter kind of middle fourth quarter closing date. So, we've just forecast what we would have through that closing date.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Yeah. Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - President & Chief Operating Officer – Americas and Africa Mining: Second quarter was a record that I think we've never produced more copper in a quarter than we did last quarter. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Red. In terms of – that was great. Yeah. Now the operation there is going great. Our team is cooperating, our work with China Moly as we plan transition is going very well. China Moly is committed to maintain the quality of operations, the standards of environmental, and social programs and so forth. So we're working very cooperatively with them, everybody – I think everybody knows this but China Moly is a non-state owned Chinese company.

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Thank you very much. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Terry with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Christopher Terry - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst · Chris Terry with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Hi, guys. Just had a couple questions on operations and also the balance sheet. Maybe just start on slide four, where it's good to get the progression I guess in the net debt, does that include the $1.5 billion equity raise, just to be clear on that... Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, it does not.

Christopher Terry - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst · Chris Terry with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Okay. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, it does not. And it doesn't include, it doesn't include ATM proceeds, it doesn't include any sale of oil and gas assets, it does not include any sale of additional shares in PT-FI.

Christopher Terry - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst · Chris Terry with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks very much. And then just I guess a broader question on your CapEx and cost reduction targets you've been able to achieve and I saw that you mentioned another $150 million, are you able to just step through how – the composition of that and how you look at 2017 and beyond and whether the cut now in your CapEx have to be caught up I guess in 2018 and beyond or whether they are sustainable? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, the $150 million you referenced is a cut in non-capital cost with oil and gas group, that's G&A and other cost that might be reported as lease operating expenses, for example. That reflects a major reduction in employment there, and we're still working on cost for office facilities and other support facilities, so that is sustainable. We had previously, beginning in 2015, although we've had a culture of doing this all along, have been very tough on managing costs in our mining business. Part that over time where we may end up having to increase some cost is – Kathleen has been work really strongly with Red and his team about reducing maintenance capital in the mining business. And we've done a great job in cutting that back. Over time, we may have to spend a bit more capital in maintaining our facilities and so forth. But other than the Grasberg investments that I just talked about, we don't see major new capital projects in the mining business until the market warrants it. Kathleen L. Quirk - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah. And we're managing – what you might be referring to, Chris, is the CapEx budget that we've reduced from $3.3 billion to $3.1 billion in 2016 and we've got slightly higher, about $100 million higher in 2017 than the previous estimate. But we're continuing in this market environment that we're in to emphasize deferring spending, our team has done a great job in finding ways to use equipment that we have, we talk about buying at home. And so the real focus is on cash flow net of CapEx and we've got the whole organization measuring on those bases. So we're working on lower for longer and we hope that that turns, but we do want to try to have sustainable long-term cost savings, both operating cost and capital savings as we go forward. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And I just want to say this, we had all of our mine managers that work under Red together week before last and we have a great team, everybody is highly motivated, understands the issues, working to achieve these objectives. And I'm really proud to be part of the team.

Christopher Terry - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst · Chris Terry with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks – thanks for the color. And just one final one, I guess, maybe even over the last three months or so if we really want – there, it seemed to be more about doing another asset sale whereas now just hearing the tone of the conversation seems like if you'd complete the equity raise and copper stays about where it is, you can get through without that, but you continue to assess it, is that the right way to read it? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: It is. I mean, we started off the year saying that every asset we had was up for consideration for sale. And we made progress. We continue to have discussions. But we're still telling the market and tell bankers if you got ideas for our business, come share them with us. And we've had a lot of interest and a lot of discussions. And that's what I talk about the balancing act, the balancing act is what we could raise, what will we be left with to build a company around, and – whereas at the beginning of the year, we didn't know, we thought we might have to sell some of these core assets, we thought we might have to sell Cerro Verde. We had a lot of interest in it. So, you're exactly right, with the plan we have now, as I said definitely now, if you like, we've turned the corner, we can see the way forward, without further asset sales, without further equity sales. We still have strategic decisions to make about the oil and gas business and about PT-FI shares as part of our arrangements with the government and we've got market uncertainties that we're going to have to monitor as we go along. But as I said, we see clarity now that we didn't have before and that clarity shows us the way to get to where we wanted to get to without having further asset sales. And so, if we can have an asset sale that would be less dilutive than an equity sale, that's the way we evaluate it. We want to do the – we want to get to where we need to get to in terms of having good balance sheet and do it in the most, the least dilutive fashion that we could get to.

Christopher Terry - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst · Chris Terry with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead

Thanks, Richard. I appreciate it. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Evan Kurtz with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, good morning, Richard and Kathleen. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Evan. Evan L. Kurtz - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: So, first question just on 10-K. I was hoping you could address I don't know if I'd call them red flags, but a couple of issues with the closing, one is DRC has obviously raised some objections to the deal. And I was wondering how are you – what's behind that, do they have any sort of legitimate claim and what that might cost if anything to push that aside, could that delay the deal? And then the second point was recently Lundin got a five week extension on their right of first offer, what was behind that, and could that similarly potentially delay the deal, I know you have to get this thing closed by December 31. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: All right. We have had just a great relationship with the – Freeport with the Government of the DRC. I mean, it was rocky at the start, but we've built a great relationship. We've operated the mine in a first-class fashion. We've had a great relationship with Gécamines, it's a state-owned company that owns an interest in Tenke Fungurume Mining and an exceptional relationship with Lundin, our partner there. We sold Lundin, our Candelaria mine in Chile. So – and we love the asset, I mean, we really like to having this part of our portfolio. So when circumstances required to sell it, everybody was disappointed. We were disappointed, Lundin was disappointed, Gécamines was disappointed, the government was…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Quail with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Andrew Quail - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Richard, Kathleen, thanks very much for the update. Just a couple. First on gold at Grasberg, obviously, it's heavily weighed to Q4 this year. Looks like the grade's going to have to jump up almost to 50% from our numbers. Looking into 2017, obviously, there's a big jump in gold. It's good for grade. Is that going to be evenly spread next year or is it going to be similar to this year and backend loaded? Kathleen L. Quirk - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: There will be variability from quarter to quarter and a slight change in grade can have a big impact, but we expect, as you see, with 2.5 million ounces that's our share, we'll have a strong quarterly gold volume throughout 2017. There will be some variability, though. Andrew Quail - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Is it going to be frontend... Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And... Andrew Quail - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Yes. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And, Andrew, this is something we've been seeing and talking about since the production of the – going back to 1998 when we first set out on this. We designed the ultimate pit limits and so forth, this has been in our plans ever since then. Andrew Quail - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Yes. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And the thing that Kathleen's talking about as we get down to the bottom of the pit, there is only one access road. And so depending on how things go, just a little bit…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tony Rizzuto with Cowen & Co. Please go ahead. Anthony B. Rizzuto - Cowen & Co. LLC: Hi, Richard, Kathleen and Red. I wanted to start off with a question on oil and gas. I see the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has set up some new requirements as it pertains to plugging and abandonment liabilities. And I'm wondering if you can discuss the ramifications and does this shrink the pool of potential acquirers of the oil and gas business? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's a good question, Tony. These are new rules and the process was started mid-year last year, rules have been published, but how the rules would be administered is still unclear and our team is monitoring this, prepared to work with the government on it. And all can say is we're going to work with them and deal with it as best we can. We've had experience with this, as you well know, Tony, because we have to deal with financial assurance obligations with states in our mining business now and the Federal government through EPA is talking about this. So this is a growing area of emphasis and globally with events that have happened has put this on emphasis for. So we just have to deal with it. We've got uncertainties and we'll report to you as we go along. But you're right, Tony, this has had an impact on potential buyers. It's a different situation from an established operator in the deepwater to having either a smaller company or a financial buyer, which would have to deal with these in different ways because the way the government has historically administered, and we're unsure exactly how it's going to…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

Thank you very much for taking the question and congratulations. Looks like you've just about made a profit from not counting the $291 million impairment. Could you talk a little more about the six copper sulfide projects you're studying, El Abra and I guess five in the U.S.? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

And if there is one or two of them, it really seems to be a barn burner with a lot of upside, maybe a better grade or a lower strip, and if the better one or two of them are, say, 120,000 ton a day grinding mill expansions as opposed to the 240,000 ton a day at Cerro Verde. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Right. So, let's start at El Abra because, John, these are like Cerro Verde, relatively low-grade deposits that are very large. And so to make them economic, you need to have substantial grinding capacity – processing capacity. So Cerro Verde, what's good about it is the exploration work we're doing, the core drilling has to find the resource, so we don't have the risk of the resource. The issue is and it's things that we do. Execution of the plan is something we're very confident about. It's just the capital to build the desalination plant and then transports that water form sea level up to – Red, what's the... Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - President & Chief Operating Officer – Americas and Africa Mining: To 10,000 feet. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: 10,000 feet, and then build the processing facility. That's a lot of capital. So that's basically what you have there. In the U.S. there is similar situation at Bagdad. It's very large low-grade deposit. And we have those similar situations in Chino in New Mexico, Morenci. The one project that really looks exciting in the U.S. that has a little different characteristic to it is the Lone Star deposit. And we've talked about Lone Star since 2007. But now we are reaching the end of the oxide life of Safford. We have those facilities. And we can work our way in the Lone Star by mining the oxide cap there, which will allow us to use these facilities that are available in the adjoining Safford mine, and that would ultimately expose an enormous sulfide resource, big, low grade, which would allow us to take a step towards getting the benefit from it and then have the opportunity to do a large scale concentrator development. There is also a sulfide deposit at depth at Safford. And so how we deal with those together gives us a way to phase into it that's not available with other projects.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

When you say there's a sulfide deposit at depth at Safford, you're referring to the prior pits, not Lone Star? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's correct. This is the sulfide below the existing oxide.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

So there's a lot of fun you could be having with grinding mills over the next five years or 10 years? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Absolutely, and I want to tell you, that's been the strength of our company. The early development of the SAG mills at Grasberg was a big deal. The development now of high-pressure grinding roll mills at Grasberg and Cerro Verde that's one thing that allowed us to do Cerro Verde in such an efficient way. And then Red, talk a little bit about new mill at Morenci. It's amazing. Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - President & Chief Operating Officer – Americas and Africa Mining: John, at Morenci, we're doing 75,000 tons a day through one high-pressure grinding roll. And we've had days that approached a 100,000 tons. So those are low-energy consumption, high-efficiency, and they also help with recovery more than what we see in SAG mills. So we're very pleased with all of that. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes, it's brand new technology and it's amazing to see how much material can go through it at such a smaller size than the big SAG mills that I was used to at Grasberg and at what energy efficiency. So it's fair to say that we're at the cusp of technology and operations throughout the copper mining industry and that's what we do. We're going to be very disciplined. I want to call everybody else, we're planning at this point, John, to work on it and our team is really excited about it. But we're going to be very disciplined about spending capital and we're going to be confident that the market needs this copper we're producing. It will need it, I'm confident of that. It's just a question of time.

John C. Tumazos - John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC

Analyst · John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead

Thank you very much. Harry M. “Red” Conger IV - President & Chief Operating Officer – Americas and Africa Mining: Thank you, John.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Mancini with Gabelli & Company. Please go ahead. Christopher Domenic Mancini - Gabelli & Company: Hi. I just have a question on slide 16, when you talk about the CapEx profile for the oil and gas business and the various amounts of EBITDA that can be generated at different oil and gas prices. I guess, my question is to what degree is that run rate of EBITDA sustainable with that level of $600 million CapEx, and will there be an eventual reinvestment cycle, so to speak, in that business in terms of having to invest more CapEx in order to be able to maintain the same amount of production from those wells? I guess, what's the life of production with the 2017 run rate as it's indicated on slide 16? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, that's what we're spending a lot of time on with our team in Houston. I was just there last week. And that was the key focus of what we're talking about. You're right in saying the nature of oil and gas production in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico involves inherent declines. But we have the benefit for several years now of wells that were drilled since we acquired Plains in 2013 that we have hooked up and have begun production on. And the effect of that is deferring the time when the decline hits us. So sort of like what we're doing here in the mining business, we're looking at different scenarios of where can you invest over time at the lowest risk, minimizing capital kinds of investments to arrest that decline. So we have several years to deal with that, but looking out in the long-term future would…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Gagliano with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · David Gagliano with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. A lot of them have been addressed, but I may have missed one thing. I wanted to ask a little bit more. Just on the oil side, what was the reason for the roughly 16% decline in the guidance for 2017 versus three months ago? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: All right. Well, the big issue had to do with these three new wells that we had at what we call Holstein Deep. These wells were drilled. The logs on the well, electric logs that analyze the reservoirs prior to getting production were very strong. Unfortunately, there were limits because of the nature of the wells, the depth and so forth of where certain aspects about the quality of the oil, the permeability, the viscosity were simply not available and the initial projections were based on analogists' data from the area, from other experiences, and so there was just limited data. This is common in the industry. And when these wells came on-stream, it was readily apparent that the crude oil quality, the in-situ permeability throughout the field was different than expected. The viscosity was measurably higher than pre-test expectations. And so, it was just a case of where the wells weren't able to produce what they were expected to produce. And it was fairly significant. At the outset, the three wells, we were looking at 24,000 barrels a day, that we had lowered it a bit for our second quarter plans, but they're producing at 8,500 barrels a day, 9,000 barrels a day now. Kathleen L. Quirk - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Dave, and another factor is the sale of the Haynesville gas which impacts volumes, but not really cash flows. So, you have probably two-thirds from well performance that Richard talked about, but a one-third of it is related to this Haynesville transaction which we report on equivalent basis, but it really had very little impact on our cash flow for 2017 net of capital spend. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Industry standards have this equivalency at six to one, relatively sales prices today are 15 to 1. So, we were calculating barrels equivalent to six to one. And I went back and looked and since we acquired Plains, we've had basically zero cash flows out of Haynesville. And yet that's going to show up as that number of barrels equivalent is just a problem with the way the industry reports stuff.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · David Gagliano with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then just stepping back for a second, the bigger picture commentary that you made throughout the call regarding turning the corner and really addressing the balance sheet issues. As you look ahead now to 2018 and beyond, Cerro Verde is ramped, Morenci expansion is done, obviously pretty significant drop off here at Grasberg that we've all known about or should have known about. But still, where do you see the best – what do you – I'm trying to figure out where the growth is going to come from basically in 2018 and beyond, do you turn to investments outside of Freeport, that's a bit capital constrained obviously, but I don't really have a good source of growth, I'm wondering if you could help me out there? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, that's what the market is leading us to right now. We could well have a period of time of where we will have announced new projects to develop and being engaged in developing them, just like we were in 2011 to 2016 with Tenke, Morenci and Cerro Verde. If market conditions improve by then, what you could hear us say is, okay, we're going to start on these projects, we're going have this capital plan to execute it and it's going to take time to execute it. And so, the stock at that point will be reflecting that growth plan, we might depending on market conditions have excess cash flows. I'm fine with having those excess cash flows go to shareholders. We clearly could be in a position of being re-engaged in the market looking for other opportunities, but that's an option. We wouldn't feel any imperative to do anything other than focus on building our business long-term and if we have cash flows returning to shareholders. To me philosophically, that's what a natural resource company ought to do, not feel compelled to invest just because you're having money, but have the opportunities to have capital discipline, good rates of return, show how growth would occur through that process. I keep telling all these people who are sitting on the other table about negotiating right now, I wish I were in your shoes, I wish we had a company where we could be buying assets now rather than selling, but we're not, we can't wish that away, we are what we are. But look, Dave, I'd be fine to be in that condition, to have good markets, long-term investments and if you generate excess cash, overfunding those investments, get a right capital structure to the earlier question about what would be a good debt level to have in that environment; if you got excess cash, pay your shareholders.

David Francis Gagliano - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · David Gagliano with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Sussman with Clarkson. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Sussman - Clarkson Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Jeremy Sussman with Clarkson. Please go ahead

Hi. Thanks very much for taking my question. Richard, I just want to go back to something you said early on in the call where you noted that you were open to everything essentially. And if I heard you correctly, I think you said including the sale of the company. Just trying to interpret this, is this a process that's sort of actively ongoing or is it more along the lines of somebody brings you an attractive offer, the board is obligated to consider this as usual? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Right. Well, you're right. There are legal obligations that as a public company board is saddled with. But look, there is one thing that we share with our board now and our management team, we're all in this to build shareholder value and I mean we're all committed to it. We're all trying to find the best way to do it. My only point was, that's what we're about. That's kind of like my response to Dave's question about investment in growth. So, we've told the world that you know if there is some way of generating shareholder value now that's reasonable and attractive, there is not going to be barriers to our company considering it.

Jeremy Sussman - Clarkson Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Jeremy Sussman with Clarkson. Please go ahead

Understood. That's very helpful. And just the only quick follow-up I have. The $1.5 billion ATM to reduce I think "ongoing indebtedness." Is there a particular focus such as some of the shorter dated maturities or how should we think of the proceeds here? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: No, it's going to be used as an overall management process of what makes sense. We had a later slide that showed that we basically covered our maturities through 2017. And so, we're going to be examining how to manage those maturities for 2018 forward and this will be part of the ingredients that go into that analysis for it. But there is nothing specific that we've targeted for right now.

Jeremy Sussman - Clarkson Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Jeremy Sussman with Clarkson. Please go ahead

Understood and good luck. Thanks very much. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jeremy. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Our last question comes from the line of Lucas Pipes with FBR & Company. Please go ahead. Lucas N. Pipes - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Hey, good morning, everybody. Richard, earlier in the call you mentioned trigger dates in Indonesia in fairly short order, August 8 and then January again, I wondered would you also expect kind of a final word so to say on the smelter and also the progress on the divestiture within that timeframe of call it six months or so? Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Thank you, Lucas. Those two specific issues are part of a package of resolving our contract situation. We've been very clear with the government. We can't build a smelter without a contract extension. I mean that is a major construction progress. We've done a lot of work on it, we've got site selection done, we're working with preliminary engineering, design, we've got a real clear view of what it would be required. But we can't spend significant capital on it without having a contract extension, just think about it. We start today, the smelter construction period extends at least into 2019. And if you don't have assurance from your contract, you're not going to build a smelter and not have that assurance. The same way with divestiture, we've indicated a willingness to invest even though our contract award has no requirements that we do legally in terms of trying to meet the aspirations of people of Indonesia and its government, we've said we would divest an incremental 20%-plus. But again, that would only happen if we have a contract extension. The valuation of this business, if you just say we got a contract through 2021 is unreasonable based on the investments that we…

Operator

Operator

And I will now turn the call over to management for any closing remarks. Richard C. Adkerson - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We could go on forever and some might say that indeed we have today. So, at any event, we wanted to try to answer your questions, we appreciate your attention and we are available to follow-up through David Joint if you have further questions. Thanks, everyone.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our call for today. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.