Indonesia expects to sign Freeport pact on Friday

JAKARTA, July 25 (Reuters) - Indonesia expects to sign a memorandum of understanding with Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc on Friday that would allow it to ship 756,000 tonnes of copper concentrate in the second half of the year, Coal and Minerals Director-General Sukhyar said.

He said a dispute with mining companies triggered by the imposition in January of a ban on mineral ore exports had cost $1.3 billion in lost exports of copper concentrate.

"The value of exports we missed up to June was $1.3 billion, from Freeport and Newmont, but we expect up to the end of the year around $3.4 billion," he told Reuters in an interview, referring to the firms' annual production plans.

Freeport and Newmont Mining Corp are Indonesia's biggest copper exporters.

(Reporting by Fergus Jensen and Randy Fabi; Writing by Jonathan Thatcher; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)