VOL. 09 | ISSUE 1 | Spring 2026
Making
Excellence
Routine
From Preventive Maintenance to Reinvent
Mining, a Mindset Shift Drives 2026 Success
Copper has long powered daily essentials, from home plumbing to the wiring behind our appliances. Now, it’s reshaping the future by enabling artificial intelligence, data centers and large-scale electrification projects.
For Freeport, that means delivering strong production today while preparing for what comes next. It also means ensuring employees across the Americas organization feel confident making decisions and carrying them out, said Cory Stevens, Senior Vice President; President and Chief Operating Officer-Americas.
“Within our day, there are hundreds of decisions that people should feel confident making that contribute to the overall goal.”
That sense of ownership and empowerment will guide the Americas organization in 2026 and into the future. It is central to this year’s overarching focus: We SAFELY achieve our 2026 targets by demonstrating Excellence in Everything We Do.
To deliver on that commitment, the Americas organization is focused on three strategic priorities (see chart for more details):
- Health and Safety – Always the highest priority, this category focuses on eliminating high-risk events and reducing the total number of safety incidents.
- Deliver the Plan – This section focuses mostly on today’s work, maximizing production, reducing downtime and managing costs.
- Achieve Full Potential – This area looks ahead, locking in on the ongoing Reinvent Mining work, 10-year strategic plans for each site and increasing production in the years ahead.
The common thread to achieving success in those areas is a workforce fully prepared to act – and demonstrate excellence – in an ever-evolving, fast-moving environment.
“They should be able to act with confidence around things like stopping the job, making sure we’ve got a good plan to execute and exhibiting an intolerance for unplanned failure when we know we can do it better,” Stevens said.
For example, Stevens pointed to the company’s maintenance work. Teams often go above and beyond to repair equipment, and that effort deserves recognition. But the bigger win is preventing those breakdowns in the first place by maintaining equipment so well that major repairs become rare.
That shift in mindset has broad impact, leading to fewer unplanned outages, stronger production, lower costs and improved safety, Stevens said.
The inclination has been to praise the team members who saved the day by fixing a catastrophic failure rather than celebrating the people whose work prevented that catastrophic failure from happening in the first place. “Maintenance ultimately should be boring,” Stevens said.
That focus on doing the basics right also is at the heart of Reinvent Mining.
Launched last year, Reinvent Mining takes a hard look at how Freeport operates. It combines stronger execution of core production practices with innovation and new technologies to improve efficiency, reduce costs and strengthen long-term competitiveness.
“We need to change the mindset of what we have accepted before as ‘that’s just how it is’ in the mining business,” he said.
Stevens assumed his current role in December and spent much of the first quarter of 2026 visiting the company’s North America sites, listening to employees and talking about the opportunity in front of everyone.
Whether through Reinvent Mining, strengthening the maintenance program or minimizing workplace risk, every employee has a role to play and can feel empowered to demonstrate Excellence in Everything We Do, Stevens said.
“Everybody should feel really proud of what we do,” he said. “We improve the quality of life with our products. And that’s a very noble pursuit.”
“Within our day, there are hundreds of decisions that people should feel confident making that contribute to the overall goal.”
CORY STEVENSR | SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT | PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER-AMERICAS
Demonstrating Excellence
Several of Freeport’s North American leaders were asked what demonstrating “Excellence in Everything We Do” means to them.
Mark Albertsen
Vice President-Smelting and Refining
Demonstrating Excellence in Everything We Do means showing up every day with passion and pride in my work, consistently driving myself and the team to deliver results that reflect high standards. Setting a shared expectation that everyone brings their best, creates trust, pride and accountability within the group. When we all strive for excellence, the team will perform at a higher level and will achieve exceptional results.
Toby Dunn
Vice President-Morenci Operations
Having standards that we never relent or compromise on regardless of the task – big or small. Holding ourselves accountable to that standard even when nobody is watching or things get hard, even when many other priorities and distractions are coming at us. Demonstrating Excellence in Everything We Do doesn’t always mean being perfect or getting it right every time, but the mindset that we never compromise our standards and expectations, and we don’t settle for less than our best. When we do fall short, we take corrective action swiftly and immediately, identifying opportunities to improve and prevent future occurrences.
Jeff Monteith
General Manager-Bagdad
Demonstrating Excellence in Everything We Do means showing up each day focused on working safely, supporting one another and executing the plan with discipline. When everyone takes ownership of their role and commits to doing their work well, the results follow.
Bert Odinet
Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer
Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer
It means attention to details and supporting your teammates. It means challenging the status quo and striving to improve outcomes. It means listening and being open-minded. It means understanding your team’s impact on others in the business and striving to lift the whole organization.
Vicki Seppala
General Manager-Safford
General Manager-Safford
It means attention to details and supporting your teammates. It means challenging the status quo and striving to improve outcomes. It means listening and being open-minded. It means understanding your team’s impact on others in the business and striving to lift the whole organization.
Shane Wiegand
Senior Vice President-Technical Services
Senior Vice President-Technical Services
We face complex and challenging situations every day. Don’t run from them. Bring clarity to what matters and let One Freeport guide the way. Aligning transparent input across our operating and support teams and doing what’s right for business, even when it is not easy, is how we make better decisions and achieve Excellence in Everything We Do.
We SAFELY achieve our 2026 targets by demonstrating Excellence in Everything We Do
Health &
Safety
FREEPORT AMERICAS TARGETS
- Eliminate High-Risk Events
- TRIR at or Below Target of 0.90
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
- With seven fatalities in 2025 related to an unidentified catastrophic risk, we will engage experts and SMEs to help the sites identify risks we haven't considered.
- During the engineering phase of construction, we can eliminate safety risks by proactively identifying and addressing them during our design work.
- Reducing High-Risk Incidents is our priority; Managing TRIR responsibly is an MSHA requirement and expectation of Freeport. Sites will identify relevant objectives in achieving both.
Deliver
the Plan
FREEPORT AMERICAS TARGETS
- Achieve Cu Mining Rate of 3.1M Tons Mined per day
- Reduce Unplanned Downtime by 35%
- Produce 300M Incremental L2LD lbs.
- Produce 2.59B Cu lbs. and 98.19M lbs. Mo
- $2.72/lb. (Cash Cost + WIP)
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
- Successfully achieving our established mining rate target is integral in reaching our safe production targets throughout the remainder of the value stream including crusher throughput, mill throughput and recovery as well as leaching recoveries through ROM and Crushed Leach operations.
- Unplanned downtime accounted for an estimated loss of over 150 million pounds of copper in 2025. Focusing on reducing those instances of unplanned time will greatly impact our ability to achieve our forecasted production rates in the safest way possible.
- While setting targets in key performance metrics is essential, making thoughtful business decisions is what's most important. While these decisions may, at times, have an immediate negative impact on key metrics, it's the right thing for the long-term asset health and overall business objectives.
- By continuing to prioritize our Leach to the Last Drop (L2LD) initiatives, we maximize copper recovery from existing resources, generating low-cost, additional copper production beyond what is achieved through new stockpile additions.
- Focusing on producing at or above expected levels at the projected cost allows us to thrive in a cyclical copper market - in both good and tough times.
Achieve Full
Potential
FREEPORT AMERICAS TARGETS
- Full pipeline of Reinvent Mining initiatives (>$1.00 in Development/Deployment) and $0.30 run rate1 impact at MOR
- Develop a 10-year Strategic Business Plan for each site
- Add 750MM lbs. to 2026-2030 Forecast
1 Against 2024 Baseline
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
- In addition to the work currently being done and additional work planned in Morenci, Reinvent Mining initiatives will be scaled across the organization where we have the opportunity to generate positive cash flow.
- Through collaborative efforts across FMA, we will develop Strategic Business Plans necessary to ensure we have the plans and the resources to meet future planned targets in pursuit of our full potential.
- Driving innovation through new strategies, technologies, and business practices will enable us to deliver an additional 750 million pounds of copper beyond the current 5-year forecast.