Shares Of Freeport-McMoRan Give Up Early Morning Gains Following Its Q4 Print

Shares of

opened for trading at $4.39 on Tuesday. The stock moved higher to $4.42 before reversing direction and were trading higher by less than 3 percent at $4.03 after 20 minutes of trading. Freeport-McMoRan reported its

before market open. The company said that it lost $0.02 per share on revenue of $3.79 billion during the quarter. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to lose $0.11 per share on revenue of $3.90 billion. Freeport-McMoRan noted its net loss attributable to common stock totaled $4.1 billion during the quarter. The company's consolidated sales consisted of 1.15 billion pounds of copper, 338,000 ounces of gold, 20 million pounds of molybdenum and 13.2 million barrels of oil equivalents during the fourth quarter. Average realized prices were $2.18 per pound for copper, $1,067 per ounce for gold and $48.88 per barrel for oil (including $11.39 per barrel for cash gains on derivative contracts). Freeport-McMoRan also announced it is currently engaged in discussions with third party to explore options to accelerate its debt reduction initiatives. The company added that several initiatives are already being advanced, including an evaluation of alternatives for the oil and gas business (FM O&G) as well as several transactions involving certain of its mining assets. Richard C. Adkerson, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "As we enter 2016, our clear and immediate objective is to restore FCX's balance sheet and position the Company appropriately to enhance shareholder value in the current market environment. We are responding swiftly and decisively to achieve this objective. Our high-quality asset base provides opportunities for significant debt reduction while retaining a substantial business with attractive low-cost, long-lived reserves and resources that will enable our shareholders to benefit from improved conditions in the future. We achieved several important operational milestones during the fourth quarter while taking aggressive actions to adjust our plans in response to the decline in prices for our primary products."