MP Materials Corp.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining today's MP Materials second quarter 2023 earnings call and webcast. My name is Tia, and I will be your moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Head of Investor Relations, Martin Sheehan. Please proceed.

thank you operator and good afternoon everyone welcome to mp materials second quarter 2023 earnings conference call with me today from mp materials are jim latinski founder chairman and chief executive officer michael rosenvold founder and chief accounting 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'll turn the call over to Jim. Jim?

Thanks, Martin, and thank you all for joining us today. Let me give you a brief overview of today's call. To begin, I will discuss the second quarter and more recent highlights. Ryan will then run through the financials and KPIs, followed by Michael, who will review Stage 2 progress. I will then provide some closing commentary before Q&A. So let's begin on slide four and jump right to the middle of the slide under stage two for important and exciting news. We have officially started production of separated rare earths at Mountain Pass. Michael and the team have done an incredible job on stage two, particularly over the last several months to advance commissioning. Let me be very clear. We still have a lot of work to do to get each circuit to operate reliably and ramp up production volumes, but the chemistry and separations processes are working as expected. We expect to begin shipping separated NDPR oxide to customers this quarter. So, with the critical caveat that we must still work relentlessly towards our mission, I want to reiterate that achieving refined rare earth production is a milestone worth celebrating for all of us at MPE, our shareholders, as well as everyone in America. Moving back to the left of the slide, in the second quarter, we achieved record stage one production for a quarter, which included a planned maintenance shutdown. In fact, this was our third highest quarterly production volume ever, with the only two greater quarters being ones where we did not have a one-week planned shutdown. This translated into strong financial performance despite difficult pricing comparisons, and Ryan will provide more detail on this in a moment. Nonetheless, the team's Stage 1 execution this quarter was very impressive, especially when we consider all the activity on our site related to Stage 2 commissioning and those achievements. Lastly, our Stage 3 downstream magnetics business continues to advance across many functions. We are now installing some of the first metal and alloy making equipment in our Fort Worth facility. Other key equipment is in transit with the goal to begin installation during the remainder of the year. Fort Worth is going to be the epicenter of magnetics in the Western world. Along with the scaled metal, alloy, and magnet manufacturing, we are establishing a state-of-the-art R&D, piloting, and product development area at the facility. Some of this equipment is already in the process of being installed, and we continue to make important hires across the magnetic team. In fact, MP, the company overall, just surpassed the 600 employee mark. Yet, as we add depth and expertise across our sites in Mountain Pass, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Las Vegas, we remain maniacally focused on preserving our owner-operator culture. With that, let me turn it over to Ryan. Ryan?