MP Materials Corp. (NYSE:MP) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call August 1, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Martin Sheehan - Head of Investor Relations
James H. Litinsky - Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer
Ryan S. Corbett - Chief Financial Officer
Michael Rosenthal - Chief Operating Officer

Conference Call Participants

David Dekelbaum - TD Cowen
Kevin Estok - Jefferies
Matt Summerville - D.A. Davidson
George Gianarikas - Canaccord Genuity
Lawson Winder - Bank of America
Bill Peterson - JPMorgan
Davis Sunderland - Baird

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the MP Materials’ Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call and Webcast.

My name is Harry, and I’ll be your operator today. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for question-and-answers after management’s prepared remarks. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to hand the conference over to Martin Sheehan, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Martin Sheehan

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the MP Materials’ second quarter 2024 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 and tons means metric tons. Finally, the earnings release and slide presentation are available on our website.

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

James H. Litinsky

Thanks, Martin. Hello, everyone. As is our usual program, I will review the quarter at a high-level. Ryan will then cover our financial performance and operating KPIs, Michael will follow with an overview and updates on Mountain Pass operations, and I will then return with closing remarks before Q&A.

So, let’s get to it on Slide 4. This was a very challenging quarter, operationally and financially. Production in our upstream business was hindered by rake damage and a thickener that impacted operations for about three weeks. This was our biggest disruption in seven years. Michael and Ryan will provide a lot more detail later in the call, but suffice to say, the unanticipated downtime impacted REO production as well as our financial performance in the quarter.