MP Materials Corp.

Hello all and a warm welcome to the MP Materials third quarter 2021 earnings call. My name is Lydia and I'm your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you may do so by pressing start followed by one on your telephone keypad. It's my pleasure to now hand you over to our host, Martin Sheehan, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead when you're ready.

Thank you, Operator, and good day, everyone. Welcome to MP Materials' third quarter 2021 earnings call. With me today are Jim Latinsky, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MP Materials, Michael Rosenthal, Chief Operating Officer, and Ryan Corbett, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get to Jim's and Ryan's opening remarks, I'd like to remind you that during today's call, we will make certain forward-looking statements that do not constitute historical facts under the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions, and as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this communication. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to materially differ from forward-looking statements, please refer to the cautionary language in the earnings release and in our filings with the SEC, including the risk factors section in our recent SEC filings. During the call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe to be useful in evaluating NP materials operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for NP materials financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in our current report on Form 8K filed today and can be found on our website, investors.npmaterials.com. And please check our investor website regularly and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, where we often provide news and information on the company. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim. Jim?

Thanks, Martin. And thank you to everyone joining us on the call this afternoon. Let me run down what we will cover on the call today. First, I will recap the highlights of another outstanding quarter. Second, Ryan will provide color on our operational results and financial performance. Third, I will provide an update on our Stage 2 and Stage 3 progress. Finally, I will share my views on recent market trends and some other thoughts. After wrapping up the prepared remarks, we will open it up for Q&A. But let's start with the third quarter highlights on slide four. The MP team continues to perform above and beyond even our own high expectations, again, setting new records for production and sales volumes. Across the board, Every department continues to improve processes and overall execution, which when combined with select equipment upgrades is driving higher utilization of our assets and higher production volumes. These factors have produced a meaningful increase in our total output for the quarter. I would also add that we produced more REO in just this quarter than our predecessor produced in its best year ever. Let me repeat that. MP Materials produced more REO in just this quarter than the predecessor entity did in their best year ever. This stat is just really incredible, and it is also particularly remarkable when we think about all the operational, logistical, and labor challenges going on related to COVID. I am so proud of our team. I would also like to give a special thanks to our logistics team. Despite significant shipping and trucking challenges throughout the economy, we shipped over 12,000 metric tons of REO in the quarter. This represents a 30% increase over Q2. The ingenuity and dedication of the MP team is just awesome. And we've said this before, we are selling everything we can produce. Strong global demand for rare earth materials resulted in a 127% year-over-year increase in realized prices. This is being driven primarily by NDPR as well as other magnetic rare earths contained in our concentrate. The combination of higher volumes and higher pricing led to revenues more than doubling year over year to 99.8 million. The strong pricing combined with continued diligent cost management helped to demonstrate the leverage in our operating model with adjusted EBITDA increasing nearly six times year over year to 68.3 million. And along with this performance, we delivered operational efficiency improvements as our unit production costs declined nearly 6% from the second quarter of 2021. The improved financial performance is also naturally increasing our cash generated from operations. We generate a significant amount of cash from our operations, and we have a fortress balance sheet. This positions MP to continue to invest in our Stage 2 and Stage 3 opportunities while maintaining substantial firepower to pursue high ROIC opportunities within our mission and, over time, reward shareholders. The Stage 2 optimization project continues to progress at a healthy pace. We continue to manage through many of the challenges we face. MP has an execution-focused owner-operator culture, We understand the importance of Stage 2 to our overall mission, and we remain focused. And again, our strong Stage 1 production achievements further support our Stage 2 volume outlook for 2023 of 6,075 metric tons of NDPR production. Lastly, just quickly on Stage 3, we look forward to sharing more on the vision for our first rare earth metal and magnet facility and the progress we are making towards the end of the year. More on stage two and stage three in a bit, but for now, let me turn it over to Ryan for more details on our quarter.