MP Materials Corp. (NYSE:MP) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 4, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Martin Sheehan - Head, IR

Jim Litinsky - Founder, Chairman and CEO

Ryan Corbett - CFO

Michael Rosenthal - Founder and COO

Conference Call Participants

Corinne Blanchard - Deutsche Bank

Carlos De Alba - Morgan Stanley

Will Jellison - D.A. Davidson

George Gianarikas - Canaccord Genuity

David Deckelbaum - Cowen

Lawson Winder - Bank of America

Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending today's MP Materials First Quarter Earnings Call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for question-and-answer at the end [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Martin Sheehan with MP Materials. You may proceed.

Martin Sheehan

Thank you, operator and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the MP Materials’ first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. With me today from MP Materials are Jim Litinsky, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer; Michael Rosenthal, Founder and Chief Operating Officer; and Ryan Corbett, Chief Financial Officer.

As a reminder, today’s discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to future events and expectations that are subject to various assumptions and caveats. Factors that may cause the company’s actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today’s presentation, earnings release, and in our SEC filings.

In addition, we have included some non-GAAP financial measures in this presentation. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in today’s earnings release and the appendix to today’s slide presentation. Any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA. Finally, the earnings release and slide presentation are available on our website.

With that, I will turn the call over to Jim. Jim?

Jim Litinsky

Thanks Martin and thank you all for joining us today. Let me start with an overview of today's call. I will begin with the highlights of the quarter, including a Stage III update. Ryan will then review our financials and KPIs. Michael will then provide an update on our Stage II optimization at Mountain Pass. I will then return with closing comments and then open it up for Q&A.

So, let's get started on slide four. We continue to execute well in our Stage I upstream business. For the eighth consecutive quarter, we produced more than 10,000 metric tons of rare earths in concentrate. Sales volumes were similarly strong, allowing us to generate solid adjusted EBITDA and related margin despite challenging realized price comparisons. I know pricing is a topic on the minds of investors and I will share some detailed perspective on that later in the call.