Freeport-Mcmoran Copper & Gold Inc, the world's second-largest copper producer, verbally agreed to pay higher processing fees to Jiangxi Copper Co, the first increase in three years, two company executives said.

Jiangxi Copper accepted fees of US$75 a metric ton for smelting ore and 7.5 US cents a pound for refining in 2009, said one executive, a jump of about 60 percent from last year. Copper has plunged by more than half from a record US$8,940 a ton in July as a global recession curbed demand for the metal, used in power generators, wires and cables.

(Shanghai Daily January 14, 2009)