Freeport-McMoRan executive to deliver Poundstone Lecture at WVU

Harry M. (Red) Conger

Harry M. (Red) Conger, president and chief operating officer of Freeport-McMoRan Americas and Africa mining, will speak on Thursday, September 15, as part of West Virginia University’s Department of Mining Engineering’s William N. Poundstone Lecture Series.

The lecture, which will begin at 5 p.m., in Grand Hall A, of the Erickson Alumni Center, is open to the public.

Conger is responsible for management of the company’s North and South America copper mining operations, Tenke Fungurume minerals district in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Climax Molybdenum Co. This includes nine mining operations in North America, two in South America, one in Africa and the associated downstream processing facilities. These operations employ more than 18,000 and have annual copper production of 3.6 billion pounds and annual molybdenum production of 70 million pounds.

Conger has 39 years of mining industry experience with Freeport-McMoRan and its predecessors and is considered a leader in safety, change management and production efficiency.

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, FCX operates large, long-lived, geographically diverse assets with significant proven and probable reserves of copper, gold, molybdenum, cobalt, oil and natural gas. FCX is the world’s largest publicly traded copper producer, the world’s largest producer of molybdenum, and a significant gold, oil and natural gas producer.

The Department of Mining Engineering established the William N. Poundstone Lecture Series in 2000 to honor Poundstone, a distinguished alumnus of the Department, and to bring mining industry experts to campus to share their expertise with students and faculty. Poundstone, who passed away in 2015, is scheduled to be inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum in late September.

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