Richard C Adkerson

Chief Executive Officer of the Company since December 2003. President of the Company since January 2008 and from April 1997 to March 2007. Chief Financial Officer of the Company from October 2000 to December 2003. Director and Executive Vice President of PT Freeport Indonesia, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Atlantic Copper, and Co-Chairman of the Board of McMoRan Exploration Co. (McMoRan). President and Chief Executive Officer of McMoRan from 1998 to 2004. An Mississipi State U accounting graduate now residing in Phoenix, Ariz., Adkerson is chief executive officer of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., the world's largest publicly traded copper producer. He is a former Mississippi resident who graduated from Kosciusko High School after attending Tupelo High School. Adkerson's accounting degree was completed with highest honors in 1969; his MBA, a year later. In 1970, he scored the second highest nationally on the certified public accounting examination. He also is a graduate of Harvard University's Advanced Management Program. Today, in addition to being Freeport-McMoRan CEO, he is co-chairman of New Orleans-based McMoRan Exploration Co., an international oil and gas exploration and production business founded in 1969 by W.K. McWilliams (of Lauderdale County), James R. Moffett and B.M. Rankin Jr. Adkerson began his career as an accountant with Arthur Andersen & Co. in New Orleans. He began working with McMoRan in 1970 and, in 1976, was selected for a coveted two-year fellowship with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., where he worked on oil and gas accounting and reporting standards. He then became a partner and managing director at Arthur Andersen, leading the firm's Worldwide Oil and Gas Industry Practice in Houston, Texas, before re-joining Freeport-McMoRan in New Orleans in 1989.