Freeport (FCX) Q2 2026: Revenue Down 7.3%, EPS Up 28% as Grasberg Ramp Lags the Copper Rally

Freeport-McMoRan's realized copper price rose 36% year over year in the second quarter — yet revenue still fell 7.3% to $7,029 million. The reason is volume: copper sales dropped 30.1% and gold sales dropped 76.4% while the Grasberg Block Cave mine works through a phased restart after the September 2025 mud rush. Earnings per share still rose 28.3% to $0.68, but that gain came from a lower tax rate and a smaller minority-interest deduction, not from a better quarter underground. Copper then set an all-time high after the quarter closed: the LME settlement price closed at a record $6.56 per pound on August 6, 2026 — the same date as the 10-Q filing; the chronology is consistent with LME settlements occurring before U.S. market hours, but readers should confirm against the subsequent-events note — and COMEX at a record $6.70 per pound on August 5, both disclosed in the 10-Q. For a copper miner, the commodity cycle and the company's own operating cycle are unusually far out of phase.

One framing note before the numbers. On the metrics Wall Street tracks, this was a beat, not a miss: adjusted EPS of $0.75 came in above the $0.62 consensus and revenue of $7.03 billion above roughly $6.47 billion expected. The year-over-year declines below are real, but they measure the quarter against a pre-mud-rush baseline, not against expectations.

Sources. All financial figures are from Freeport-McMoRan's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, filed with the SEC on August 6, 2026, unless otherwise noted. Ramp-up rates, adjusted (non-GAAP) earnings and consensus comparisons are from the company's Q2 2026 earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), the Q2 2026 earnings call and published analyst estimates. Multi-year annual figures are from SEC XBRL company filings data (CIK 0000831259). All amounts are in U.S. dollars, consolidated basis.