Freeport declares force majeure at Grasberg

Ongoing labour unrest at Freeport-McMorran’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia has forced the American company to declare force majeure.

The announcement made Wednesday effectively allows Freeport (NYSE:FCX) to stop shipments from its gold and copper mine so that it can avoid liability on existing customer orders.

About 8,000 workers — a third of the mine’s workforce — have been on strike since September 15th and earlier this month vowed to shut down the mine if hourly wages of $1.50 are not upped 8-fold. The strike recently turned ugly with reports of sabotage and injuries.

Freeport says the strike has bit into production and impacted its customer commitments:

“The (lower) production has impacted our ability to fully perform our sales commitments, and as a result we were required to declare force majeure on the affected… sales agreements,” Freeport Indonesia spokesman Ramdani Sirait told AFP.

Anticipated supply shortfalls buoyed the price of copper on the London Metal Exchange Wednesday, Reuters reported, with the benchmark contract rising as much as 3.5% to $7,785 a tonne — just shy of a one-month peak hit on Tuesday.

Grasberg is the world’s largest copper and gold mine by reserves.