MP Materials Corp DE

Mountain Pass

The Company owns and operates the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility (previously defined as “Mountain Pass”), which is located on 2,232 fee simple acres of land, approximately 50 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, near Mountain Pass, San Bernardino County, California, at geographic coordinates 35°28’56”N latitude and 115°31’54”W longitude. Mountain Pass supports the Company’s Materials segment and includes an open-pit mine in the production stage, infrastructure supporting mining and processing operations, overburden and ore stockpiles, a crusher, a mill/flotation plant, hydrometallurgy facilities, separation plants, product finishing facilities, tailings processing and storage facilities, a water treatment plant, an idle chlor-alkali facility, and on-site evaporation ponds, as well as laboratory facilities to support product analysis and research and development activities, offices, maintenance shops, warehouses and support buildings. In 2023, the Company completed recommissioning activities on its previously idle separation facilities at Mountain Pass and completed construction of new assets, which are utilized to separate rare earth concentrate into other products, including NdPr oxide. The Mountain Pass facilities and infrastructure, the majority of which were constructed between 2012 and 2023, are in good operating condition and benefit from routine maintenance. The net carrying amount of property, plant and equipment (excluding mineral rights) used in the operation of Mountain Pass was approximately $621 million as of December 31, 2024.

Mountain Pass directly abuts Interstate 15 and may be accessed by existing hard-surface roads. Water at Mountain Pass is supplied through active water wells, pit dewatering, and process water recovery. MP Materials’ facilities at Mountain Pass are powered by a natural gas-powered CHP plant, which produces electricity and steam, minimizing reliance on the regional electric power grid.

As of December 31, 2024, approximately 1,128 acres of the 2,232 acres were in use (e.g., existing buildings, infrastructure or active disturbance). Portions of the fee lands, none of which are actively being mined or are currently anticipated to be mined for the purpose of recovering ore, are subject to mineral reservations in favor of the U.S. for some properties and the State of California for other properties. The specific minerals reserved on those parcels vary according to the type of land patent or conveyance document through which the land was acquired or conveyed. The Company also owns mining and mill site claims over a further 15,000 acres of adjacent land. The lands surrounding Mountain Pass are mostly public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. In addition, MP Materials holds 525 unpatented lode and mineral mining claims and mill sites under the provisions of The Mining Law of 1872. These mining claims and mill sites provide land for mining, ancillary facilities, and expansion capacity around Mountain Pass.

Mountain Pass represents the largest commercial source of rare earth materials in the Western hemisphere. Molybdenum Corporation of America began REE mining operations at Mountain Pass in 1952. Mining, milling, and separation processes continued under Unocal Corporation, which purchased Molybdenum Corporation of America in 1977, until 1998. In 2005, ChevronTexaco Corporation acquired Unocal Corporation and then, in 2008, Molycorp Minerals, LLC acquired Mountain Pass from Chevron Mining Inc. Operations relating to mining, milling and separations resumed under Molycorp until they were placed into cold-idle status in mid-2015. In July 2017, the Company acquired Mountain Pass from the Molycorp estate.

The Company holds the necessary permits to operate Mountain Pass, including conditional use and minor use permits from San Bernardino County, California, and an associated environmental impact report, all of which were issued in 2004, which currently allow continued operation of Mountain Pass through 2042, though the Company expects to extend such permits to allow for continued operation through at least 2053. Since restarting operations at the facility in the fourth quarter of 2017, the Company’s activities initially focused on the milling and flotation processes, leading to production of a bastnaesite concentrate, rich in REE, with the first concentrate sales in the first quarter of 2018. In the second half of 2023, the Company commenced production of separated rare earth products.

The bastnaesite ore body at Mountain Pass has been mined as a principal source of REE for a period of over 60 years. The Mountain Pass REE deposit is located within an uplifted block of Precambrian metamorphic and igneous rocks that are bounded to the south and east by basin-fill deposits in California’s Ivanpah Valley. The two main groups of rocks in the Mountain Pass area are Early Proterozoic high-grade metamorphic rocks and Middle Proterozoic ultrapotassic rocks and monazitic carbonatites, which carbonatites are associated with higher levels of REE. The total orebody strike length is approximately 2,750 feet and dip extent is 3,000 feet; true thickness of the more than 2% total rare earth oxide (“TREO”) grade zone ranges between 15 feet and 250 feet. The percentage of each rare earth material contained in typical Mountain Pass bastnaesite concentrate is estimated to be as follows:

(1)See the“Rare Earth Resources and Reserves” section below for definition.

Independence Facility

The Company owns approximately 18 acres of land in Fort Worth, Texas, on which it is developing Independence, a metal, alloy, and magnet manufacturing facility as part of its Stage III strategy. The building and building improvements were substantially completed in the fourth quarter of 2023. In the fourth quarter of 2024, the Company commissioned machinery and equipment used in the manufacturing of NdPr metal, including electrolysis cells, and placed into service certain other machinery and equipment necessary for the production of other magnetic precursor products, such as strip casters. Installation and construction related to certain magnet manufacturing processes and equipment continues within the building. The Independence Facility supports the Magnetics segment.

Corporate Office

The Company has a lease for corporate office space at 1700 S. Pavilion Center Drive, Suite 800, Las Vegas, Nevada 89135. The lease has an initial term of 91 months expiring in October 2030, with an option to renew for one five-year period at the Company’s election.