Molycorp Announces Start-Up of Heavy Rare Earth Concentrate Operations at Mountain Pass, Calif.
Company Also Announces That Its High-Efficiency Combined Heat & Power Plant Will Begin Feeding Electrical Power and Steam to Its New Project Phoenix Facility This Week
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) today announced the start-up of its new Project Phoenix heavy rare earth concentrate facilities at Mountain Pass, California, which will produce heavy rare earth concentrate from freshly mined Mountain Pass ore that will then be processed into high-purity, custom-engineered heavy rare earth products in Molycorps globally integrated production facilities.
Molycorp also announced that its on-site Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant will begin feeding low-cost, high efficiency electrical power and steam this week to its Mountain Pass facilities. Molycorp's CHP plant is fueled by clean-burning natural gas fed to the facility by a recently completed natural gas lateral supply line that connects the facility to a nearby interstate natural gas pipeline operated by Kern River Gas Transmission Company.
We have launched operations of Project Phoenixs heavy rare earth concentrate facilities on schedule, our combined heat and power plant is set to begin powering our new facilities this week, and we remain on track to achieve full Phase 1 production rates at Mountain Pass in the fourth quarter of this year, said Mark A. Smith, Molycorps President and Chief Executive Officer. "The heavy rare earth concentrate we will produce at Mountain Pass will support our production of a full range of high-purity, custom-engineered materials from light, medium, and heavy rare earths. Such vertical integration strongly positions Molycorp to compete successfully across multiple markets.
Molycorp's heavy rare earth concentrate contains dysprosium, terbium, europium, and other elements that will be further processed by the Company into rare earth oxides, metals, alloys, and magnetic materials used in such technologies as hybrid electric vehicles, wind turbines, high efficiency appliances and motors, consumer electronics, and many other important applications.
Molycorp currently produces high-purity products from the following rare earths: Cerium, Lanthanum, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Lutetium, and Ytterbium (with purity levels as high as 99.999% for some rare earth products). It also produces high-purity products from the following rare metals and transition metals: Gallium, Rhenium, Indium, Tantalum, Niobium, Zirconium, and Yttrium (with purities as high as 99.999999% for some of these products).
About Molycorp, Inc.
Molycorp is a leading rare earths and rare metals company, and combines a world-class rare earth resource at Mountain Pass, California, with advanced, high-purity rare earth and rare metal materials processing capabilities. With 26 locations across 11 countries, Molycorp is vertically integrated across the global rare earth mine-to-magnetics supply chain. It produces rare earth magnetic materials as well as a variety of high-purity, custom engineered products from 13 different rare earths (lights and heavies) as well as five rare metals (gallium, indium, rhenium, tantalum and niobium), and the transition metals yttrium and zirconium. Through its Molycorp Magnequench subsidiary, the Company is a leading global producer of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnet powders, used to manufacture bonded NdFeB permanent rare earth magnets. Through its joint venture with Daido Steel and Mitsubishi Corporation, Molycorp expects to begin manufacturing next-generation, sintered NdFeB permanent rare earth magnets in early 2013. The rare earths and rare metals materials that Molycorp produces are critical inputs in wide variety of existing and emerging applications, including the following: advanced transportation technologies, such as hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and all-electric vehicles; clean energy technologies, such as solar and wind power systems; energy efficiency technologies, such as high efficiency motors and appliances, compact fluorescent lights, and color displays; computing and communications applications, including fiber optics, lasers, and hard disk drives; defense and aerospace applications, such as satellites, guidance and control systems, and global positioning systems; and advanced water treatment technologies for use in municipal wastewater, industrial wastewater, pool & spa, and outdoor recreation applications. For more information please visit www.molycorp.com.
Safe Harbor Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements that represent Molycorp's beliefs, projections and predictions about future events or Molycorp's future performance. Forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as may, will, would, could, should, expect, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, continue or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions or phrases. These forward-looking statements are necessarily subjective and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause Molycorp's actual results, performance or achievements or industry results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievement described in or implied by such statements.
Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results described in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the potential need to secure additional capital to implement Molycorp's business plans, and Molycorp's ability to successfully secure any such capital; Molycorp's ability to complete its planned capital projects, such as its initial modernization and expansion efforts, including the achievement of an annual production capacity of 19,050 metric tons at its Mountain Pass, California rare earth mine and processing facility, or the Molycorp Mountain Pass facility, which management refers to as Project Phoenix Phase 1, and the second phase capacity expansion plan, which management refers to as Project Phoenix Phase 2, and reach full planned production rates for REO and other planned downstream products, in each case within the projected time frame; the success of Molycorp's cost mitigation efforts in connection with Project Phoenix, which if unsuccessful, might cause its costs to exceed budget; the final costs of Molycorp's planned capital projects, such as Project Phoenix Phase 1 and Project Phoenix Phase 2, which may differ from estimated costs; Molycorp's ability to successfully integrate Neo Material Technologies, Inc. (now Molycorp Canada), with its operations; Molycorp's ability to achieve fully the strategic and financial objectives related to the acquisition of Molycorp Canada, including the acquisition's impact on Molycorp's financial condition and results of operations; and unexpected costs or liabilities that may arise from the acquisition, ownership or operation of Molycorp Canada. Also as a result of the Molycorp Canada acquisition, Molycorp's business performance may be materially affected by a number of other factors and uncertainties including, but not limited to: the rate of exchange of the U.S. dollar to the Canadian dollar, the Japanese yen, and the Chinese Renminbi; new products pricing; the competitive environment for these new products; unexpected actions of domestic and foreign governments; and various events which could disrupt operations, including natural events and other risks. Other risk factors and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results include: uncertainties associated with Molycorp's reserve estimates and non-reserve deposit information, including estimated mine life and annual production; uncertainties related to feasibility studies that provide estimates of expected or anticipated costs, expenditures and economic returns, REO prices, production costs and other expenses for operations, which are subject to fluctuation; uncertainties regarding global supply and demand for rare earths materials; uncertainties regarding the results of Molycorp's exploratory drilling programs; Molycorp's ability to enter into additional definitive agreements with its customers and its ability to maintain customer relationships; Molycorp's sintered neodymium-iron-boron rare earth magnet joint venture's ability to successfully manufacture magnets within its expected timeframe; Molycorp's ability to successfully integrate other acquired businesses; Molycorp's ability to maintain appropriate relations with unions and employees; Molycorp's ability to successfully implement its mine-to-magnets strategy; environmental laws, regulations and permits affecting Molycorp's business, directly and indirectly, including, among others, those relating to mine reclamation and restoration, climate change, emissions to the air and water and human exposure to hazardous substances used, released or disposed of by Molycorp; and uncertainties associated with unanticipated geological conditions related to mining.
For more information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties that Molycorp may face, see the section entitled Risk Factors of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011 and of the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Any forward-looking statement contained in this release or the Annual Report on Form 10-K or the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q reflects Molycorp's current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to Molycorp's operations, operating results, growth strategy and liquidity. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements because such statements speak only as to the date when made. Molycorp assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future, except as otherwise required by applicable law.
Molycorp, Inc.
Jim Sims, +1-303-843-8062
Vice
President, Corporate Communications
Jim.Sims@Molycorp.com
or
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Blackman, +1-303-843-8067
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Brian.Blackman@molycorp.com
Source: Molycorp, Inc.
Copyright Business Wire 2012
The analysis of the bastnaesite deposit at Mountain Pass, which is gathered from Molycorp supplied data and is published for example at http://bit.ly/uy2hnD, shows only traces of what are generally known as the heavy rare earths. Molycorp itself said recently that it would only produce 7 tons of dysprosium if it could recover 100% of the dysprosium co-produced with 50,000 metric tons of the light rare earths from Mountain Pass. Has Molycorp filed a 43-101 compliant verification of an additional ore body on the Mountain Pass site that could produce any "significant" amount of heavy rare earths? I know there is samarium and a little (0.1% of the TREEs) europium in the bastnaesite, but where and which exactly are the others and in what quantity.
I would also like to see a detailed analysis of the cost of upgrading the new Project Phoenix SX system at Mountain Pass to process the heavy rare earth fraction remaining after the first separation of the light rare earths, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, and neodymium, and the further separation of the samarium, gadolinium, and europium, medium rare earths fraction. Are any rare earths present beyond europium in "commercially recoverable" quantities, and if so, how are they, the heavy rare earths, to be separated from each other? Since Molycorp openly said less than a year ago that it had no plans to separate the "heavy rare earths" at Mountain Pass I ask Molycorp to please tell us what process they have now installed to do that? I assume its ion exchange, because I do not think there is any other way for them to have a limited use specialized system up and running in less than a year. Actually now that I think about it there is such a system and Molycorp is aware of it, SPE, solid phase extraction, but they rejected it several years ago.
I have a theory. I suspect that Molycorp is intending to send the heavy or even the medium, and heavy, fractions from their SX plant to China for the recovery of the contained rare earths by and at Molycorp China? That would make sense both as a cost saving and efficiency move, but it would require import and export permits from the Chinese government, which are probably harder to get than hen's teeth. But if there are concentrates to be processed from Mountain Pass and they are processed in China then returned to the USA then I would call them domestic materials.
Here's an idea: Perhaps the tiny amount of dysprosium concerned could be obtained in a heavy rare earth concentrate at Mountain Pass then separated and purified in China then made into metals and alloys either in Japan or the USA and then delivered to Hitachi in China Grove, North Carolina. Publicists and government bureaucrats could I think legally call this
domestic" American material, but it would be hard to justify if someone else did all of the steps in the total supply chain within the United States and offered it at a lower price. I am betting that will happen.
By the way I just thought of another question for Molycorp: How long will it take to accumulate enough "heavy rare earth" concentrate to make a cost effective separation run? The SX and IEX processes don't lend themselves to any size runs. They have minimum thresholds. So, I ask, politely, what are those limits for Molycorp and when will there be enough concentrate to make a minimum run.
http://bit.ly/QPwkNL