(Adds background on export ban, comments on production resumption under temporary export permit)
By Mitra Taj
SANTIAGO, April 5 (Reuters) - Freeport McMoRan Inc FCX.N is awaiting final details on a temporary export permit in Indonesia, which would end a 12-week ban that has cost the world's biggest publicly traded copper company nearly $1 billion in lost revenues, its top executives told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.
"With the short-term arrangement, we'll start ramping production back up to feed our mill 100 percent," said Chief Financial Officer Kathleen Quirk referring to Freeport's Grasberg mine.
"It shouldn't take very long, we're talking weeks," she said, alongside Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson, on the sidelines of the CRU World Copper Conference in Santiago.
Indonesia banned miners from exporting copper concentrate on Jan. 12 under new rules aimed at boosting the Southeast Asian nation's domestic smelting industry.
Freeport is required to adopt a special license, that includes new taxes and royalties, divest a 51 percent stake in its operations and relinquish arbitration rights. Phoenix-based company has lost revenues "approaching $1 billion," under the export stoppage, said Quirk, mitigated by cuts to costs and capital spending. It is unlikely that deferred capital spending will resume until a long-term mining agreement is reached, said Adkerson.
Under a temporary permit, extending to October, Freeport could resume copper concentrate exports from Grasberg, the world's second-biggest copper mine, while negotiating contentious issues that have prevented a longer-term agreement, including divestment, economic and legal protection and domestic smelting investment. plans to boost production at Grasberg from its current 40 percent to full capacity in a matter of weeks after receiving the short-term permit, Quirk said.
"We would start arranging ships to transport that concentrate immediately and then ... we would be ramping up the operations to return to our full level," said Adkerson, adding that there is a "substantial" inventory of copper concentrate built up in storage.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Q&A-Freeport's row over its Indonesian mining contract