MP Materials Corp

NYSE:MP

Earnings Call Analysis

MP Materials Faces Challenges, Expects Strong Q3

MP Materials experienced a tough second quarter due to significant operational disruptions, including a major rake damage incident that halted production. This led to a decline in Rare Earth Oxide (REO) sales and an EBITDA loss of $27.1 million. However, the company swiftly recovered, achieving strong productivity towards the end of Q2 and anticipating a record Q3. NdPr production more than doubled to 272 metric tons, and a further 50% increase is expected in Q3. Despite the challenges, MP Materials secured new contracts, including a significant commitment from a global automaker, and remains financially robust with expected customer prepayments and tax credits bolstering their balance sheet.

A Challenging Quarter: Overcoming Operational Hurdles

MP Materials reported a difficult second quarter, marked by operational setbacks that significantly affected their production capabilities. A critical issue arose from rake damage in a thickener, leading to three weeks of downtime, the worst disruption in seven years. This unanticipated setback resulted in reduced rare earth oxide (REO) production and consequently hampered financial performance. Nonetheless, the team showed resilience, achieving the second-best upstream productivity quarter measured by REO produced per hour of uptime when operations were running smoothly.

Impressive NdPr Production Growth Amid Challenges

Despite the operational challenges, MP Materials managed to double its production of neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), reaching over 270 tons in the quarter. This represents substantial progress in their midstream capabilities. Looking ahead, they anticipate a further 50% increase in NdPr production for the third quarter, positioning themselves well for further growth. The management seems optimistic about overcoming the previous bottlenecks and improving per unit costs as production ramps up.

Navigating Risks and Investments

The company faced elevated production costs due to its transition from upstream concentrate sales to NdPr oxide and metal sales. This shift has temporarily led to lower margins as they absorb higher variable costs while optimizing production. An inventory reserve of $11.8 million was taken due to the pricing pressure in the marketplace. This period of subscale production is viewed as a critical transitional phase that necessitates significant investment but promises long-term rewards.

Customer Commitments and Future Revenue Streams

MP Materials secured a substantial commitment from a notable global automaker for NdPr oxide, alongside a Department of Defense contract. These agreements highlight the importance of developing long-term partnerships with major OEMs. The negotiated contracts are expected to contribute a low double-digit percentage to the company’s total output, reinforcing strategic priorities. Additionally, the company anticipates approximately $190 million in incremental cash from customer prepayments and tax credits by the end of 2025, further strengthening its financial position.

Progress on Cost Structures and Margins

Management is focusing on driving down NdPr production costs over the coming quarters. They have acknowledged that while an ideal cost structure is still a way off, incremental improvements are expected. The approach involves increasing operational uptime and throughput, which should naturally enhance their cost structure. Overall, the team anticipates a material reduction in per-unit production costs as efficiency improvements continue.

Future Innovation: Advancements in Magnet Production

The company is excited about progressing towards commercial production of magnet precursor materials by the end of 2025. Initial production tests have shown promising results, leading to expectations that they will successfully meet customer specifications. This marks a significant milestone, as it underscores the transition from being merely a supplier of raw materials to a manufacturer of advanced products.

Long-Term Outlook: Robotics and Electric Vehicles

MP Materials is bullish about the future potential of their products in emerging markets such as robotics and electric vehicles. They highlighted that advancements in various industries could drive demand for rare earth magnets, especially as technologies integrating physical AI gain traction. Although these markets are still developing, the management considers them to be significant growth opportunities in the medium to long term.

Conclusion: Optimism Amid Challenges

Despite facing temporary challenges and financial setbacks, MP Materials has displayed resilience and commitment towards revitalizing their operational efficiency and exploring new growth avenues. The leadership’s confidence in overcoming recent difficulties and commitment to cost reduction aligns with positive trends in production and long-term partnerships. Looking forward, the combination of increased production capabilities, customer contracts, and continued focus on innovation is likely to position MP Materials favorably in the evolving market landscape.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[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. [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, executive]

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 Litinsky, executive]

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 in a thickener that impacted operations for about 3 weeks. This was our biggest disruption in 7 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.

In about an hour though, when we finish this call, this tough quarter will be completely behind us, as the team responded to the recent adversity in our usual unwavering fashion. Production momentum coming out of Q2 and into Q3 has been very strong. In Q2, we actually achieved our second best quarter of upstream productivity measured by REO produced per hour of uptime. In other words, when the upstream was operating, the team ran it about as efficiently as ever, and we are building on that momentum going into Q3. So while it is still early, Q3 appears on track for record levels of upstream production.

Some of this production growth is from early results in our Upstream 60K optimization efforts. Through these efforts, we are already seeing higher recoveries out of the upstream, which is promising and bodes well for the future. So unfortunately, our Q2 results today reflect the financial impact of repair costs and lost efficiencies in one of our most challenging operating periods to date as well as a continued weak pricing environment. But we are confident that beneath those headlines, the silver lining of this quarter is that we responded well to an unanticipated challenge and accomplished a lot in the upstream that should position us well going forward. Moreover and despite all the upstream challenges, we more than doubled NdPr production in the quarter to over 270 tons. This is the best midstream result we have achieved to date, and we expect another 50% increase in NdPr production in Q3.

Over the past 2 months, we have seen improvements, which will continue to drive down NdPr production costs in the coming quarters. We are not where we want to be yet, but we expect per unit cost to materially improve as production ramps. This progress is well aligned with customer development activities.

In the quarter, we signed an agreement for a substantial commitment of NdPr oxide with a new customer, a household name global automaker. We expect to begin delivering NdPr to them later this year, ramping into 2025. We also were awarded a contract to supply NdPr to the Department of Defense in addition to our existing contract to provide lanthanum. Finally, in our downstream business, as we mentioned last quarter, we achieved important milestones in producing magnet precursor products, unlocking a $50 million prepayment in the quarter.

I would also like to add that we expect to earn approximately $190 million of incremental cash sources from additional from customer prepayments and tax credits by the end of 2025. This means we still expect to maintain our strong balance sheet even as we complete the remaining investments in our magnetics facility, ramp up our midstream production at Mountain Pass and navigate a weak pricing environment.

Installation and commissioning activities at the factory are progressing, and we remain on track to begin commercial production of NdPr metal later this year. In support of product development, we have commissioned our prototype production line and analytical labs. The prototype line has all the equipment needed to transform metal into a finished magnet, which enables us to produce prototype magnet precursor materials and finished magnets and optimize our processes at the kilogram scale using equipment similar to and in many cases, manufactured by the same vendors as our commercial scale equipment.

In recent weeks, we made our first magnets from powder to finished magnet and made significant progress on our grain boundary diffusion process. In our accompanying in-house laboratories at Fort Worth, which we commissioned in the quarter, we are now able to validate magnet and magnet precursor materials without enduring lengthy third-party turnaround times. These are critical steps on the road to producing high-quality magnets for our customers.

With that, let me turn it over to Ryan to run through our KPIs and our financials for the quarter. Ryan?

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Thanks, Jim. Moving to Slide 6, you will see the impact of the extended downtime on our production in the quarter. We produced 9,084 metric tons of REO in concentrate, about 16% less than a year ago and 19% lower than last quarter, which was the second highest quarter of production in our history. This unplanned downtime was on top of our usual planned downtime of about 1 week for plant maintenance. As Jim mentioned, we had significant damage to the rakes in one of our thickeners soon after we completed our planned maintenance shutdown. Unfortunately, without these rakes operating, the whole upstream operation had to shut down. The lower production volumes, some impact of shipment timing as well as more concentrate being refined to NdPr all combined to reduce REO sales volumes to 5,839 metric tons.

To give you a sense of the drivers of the sequential sales volume decline of roughly 3,500 metric tons, approximately 60% of the decline was due to the lower upstream production. About 30% was due to higher consumption of concentrate into the midstream circuits as NdPr production ramped up, while the remainder was due to shipment timing. The temporarily lower upstream sales volume along with onetime repair costs combined to drive rapid descaling in the upstream business and therefore, much higher than normal production costs in the quarter. As Jim stated, we returned to a strong efficient production in June and July. In fact, we expect Q3, if current production trends remain intact, may be one of our best upstream quarters ever.

Finishing off the discussion on the upstream, realized pricing in the quarter was approximately $4,183 per metric ton, in line with the guidance we provided back in early May.

Moving to our midstream KPIs. NdPr production more than doubled to 272 metric tons in the quarter, while sales of NdPr were in line with the prior quarter's production at 136 tons. NdPr realized pricing in the quarter was roughly $48 per kilogram. All of these metrics were in line with our guidance provided in May.

Looking forward to Q3. As of today, we would expect concentrate production volumes slightly above our typical levels in a nonshutdown quarter. Sales volumes will benefit from the higher production but will be partially offset by the higher pull-through of concentrate into the midstream circuits as we ramp NdPr production volume, which, as Jim mentioned, we expect at least a 50% sequential increase in Q3, while sales volumes are expected to be approximately in line with Q2's production of 272 metric tons.

Recall, as we discussed in May and as you saw this quarter, NdPr sales volumes will lag production volumes by about 1/4 on average, partially due to the metallization process and the initial build-out of our separated product sales channels. As for pricing, we would expect Q3 pricing to be down low single-digit percentages sequentially for both REO and concentrate and NdPr oxide sales.

Moving to Slide 7. On the far left side, you can see the impact of the lower concentrate sales volumes, the lower NdPr pricing and a longer sales cycle for NdPr sales on our revenue trends. It is important to remember that as we transition from upstream concentrate sales to NdPr oxide in metal sales, the concentrate sales will initially decline more quickly than our NdPr sales will ramp up. We are in the heart of this transition period, a critical juncture we have long warned investors about as we evolve into a fully integrated miner and refiner. Unfortunately, the financial impacts of this transition were compounded by additional unplanned downtime and repair costs this quarter alongside what would have already been a significant investment period.

Moving to the middle and right of the slide. We posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of $27.1 million and adjusted diluted loss per share of $0.17 in the quarter due to several factors. First, as we have discussed over the last few quarters, our midstream operation is currently subscale as we ramp production of NdPr and other separated products. This quarter, we absorbed the impact of higher than target variable costs as we optimized production as well as difficult fixed cost absorption at these lower production levels. This temporary period of subscale production resulted in us taking an inventory reserve of $11.8 million in the quarter. This relates to the currently elevated cost of production versus the continued pressure on market prices.

The second major impact in the quarter was the unplanned downtime, which showed up in the lost production and revenue and also combined to create both higher per unit production costs and onetime repair expenses hitting the P&L. The concentrate unit cost of production was impacted by inefficiencies in the start/stop, lower fixed cost absorption, and higher repair and maintenance expenses from our planned maintenance shutdown. This impacts both the concentrate cost of goods sold directly but also found its way into our separated product production costs in the quarter given the interconnectedness of our operation. Further, this quarter's earnings were impacted by several million dollars of costs associated with the repair of the thickener rakes, including for equipment, labor and contractor costs. This impact, of course, we expect to be onetime in nature.

Lastly, recall that even at these low prices, at normal production levels, our concentrate business generates $2,000 to $3,000 of gross margin per ton of REO in concentrates sold. As we ramp the refining operation, we are temporarily trading some level of profitable concentrate sales for temporarily unprofitable NdPr sales in this subscaled state. We are also investing working capital dollars into the transition as our sales and tolling channels for separated products build.

But as we have highlighted for the last few quarters, this is why we are being methodical in our midstream production ramp, and we remain confident that, over the long term, this is an investment we will be happy to have made. Recently, we have made very good progress in optimizing the incremental variable costs we are seeing and importantly, see a clear path to further optimization of variable costs and rightsizing of fixed cost absorption as we push forward in our ramp over the coming quarters. Importantly, we expect that the combination will reduce our per unit production costs materially.

I want to reemphasize what Jim pointed out. Over the last 8 to 10 weeks, we have returned the upstream to its high production, low-cost profile you are all used to seeing. We have also made significant progress in midstream optimization both in terms of cost and production levels. While our midstream cost structure won't be at target for several more quarters as we continue to ramp and react to bottlenecks, we see very clear signs of early success that will bear fruit over time.

I would also point out that despite a challenging quarter financially, our balance sheet remains in great shape. Again, we received a $50 million customer prepayment for magnet precursor materials in April and expect another $100 million of additional prepayments over the next year. In addition, we will earn and for the majority, expect to receive cash for the various IRA tax credits approaching another $90 million through 2025. This provides a further buttress to an already strong balance sheet as we complete Fort Worth and invest in the separated product transition, following which we expect operating cash flows to meaningfully improve.

With that, let me turn it to Michael to give you some of the technical details and updates on the operations. Michael?

[Michael Rosenthal, executive]

Thanks, Ryan. On Slide 8, we have a drone shot from above the pit. You could see the upper rim of the pit in the foreground with the separations pad on the right side. For those of you who haven't seen it before, the very long building on the right is our light rare earths separation facility, where we separate NdPr from lanthanum and any remaining cerium.

Moving to our operations. Second quarter performance was severely impacted by rake damage in one of our thickeners that Jim and Ryan described. This issue impacted production for approximately 3 weeks on top of the planned 1-week semiannual maintenance outage during the quarter. Our teams, supported by certain contractors and service providers, worked tirelessly and around the clock to restore full operations.

We resumed partial operations with some concentrate production only 10 days after the incident, so for the duration of the repairs and improvements, concentrate quantity grade and stability were meaningfully impacted. The reduction in upstream production reduced concentrate sales and curtailed feedstock for midstream operations for several weeks from mid-May into early June.

This was easily the biggest disruption our operation has sustained in the past 7 years. While we are not happy about the incident, the creative and coordinated efforts of our team through this challenge were remarkable and inspiring, and we finished the quarter having produced more than 9,000 tons of REO in concentrate.

Once normal operations were restored, we accelerated the progress we have been making on all fronts, and it's quite satisfying to see the momentum we are building in many areas. Concentrate production per operating hour improved and June represented one of our best months ever with higher production at higher grade. In addition, we are beginning to realize some of the efficiency gains in our midstream business that I discussed on previous calls.

Notwithstanding the extra downtime that impacted feedstock for the midstream operations into June, we were able to approximately double NdPr oxide production quarter-over-quarter. NdPr oxide quality has been very good, as is the quality of NdPr metal that is now being consistently delivered to our magnet maker customers. Mechanical reliability of our new assets remains one of the biggest challenges in the midstream operation, but we are seeing noticeable improvement largely corresponding to process maturity and as certain supply chain impediments are resolved.

As I look ahead to the balance of the year, we will remain focused on uptime and executing certain projects in our upstream business and balancing uptime, process optimization and production cost in our midstream circuits. Strong concentrate production has continued into Q3. We are optimistic that noncapital-related optimizations we have implemented this year have moved our grade recovery curve favorably. These optimizations may free up real estate in our concentrator facility for future improvements and/or growth. Separately, we have 2 Upstream 60K related capital project that will begin commissioning this quarter, so we wouldn't count on any benefits until next year.

The first is a large-scale pilot of alternative flotation equipment. The second is a more sizable investment in our grinding circuit that we hope will ensure a tighter and more favorable grind distribution that should improve recovery and throughput potential.

In the midstream circuits, with improved mechanical stability, we are starting to achieve higher availability. As our teams gain experience and confidence, our execution is improving, and we are able to work through issues that previously slowed production. However, as we have done so, we have identified a handful of process bottlenecks and we have straightforward plans to address many of these through the balance of the year.

Our processes to recycle our wastewater is a good example. These circuits remove impurities from our process wastewater allowing us to recycle the water and minimize or eliminate the need for freshwater in our midstream processes. They are therefore critical circuits for water balance, environmental sustainability and operating cost. When not running to their potential, they have proved a modest impediment to higher throughput and uptime.

In recent weeks, we have greatly improved their performance in all operating environments, allowing for greater uptime in the rest of the plant in subsequent periods. We are also laser focused on improving the NdPr recoveries in our leach circuit, where despite success in cerium rejection we see a huge opportunity for improved NdPr recovery and even better cerium rejection.

Incremental progress will be a major contributor to better leverage of our reagent consumption site wide. The impact of this is material as reagents represent our largest production cost category. Another opportunity was realized in late Q2 and early Q3. We completed the replacement of both turbines in our power plant that had reached the end of operating life. This was completed with less interruption to operations than feared and allows us greater power production capability at lower cost.

We now expect to be able to sustain our current operations on one turbine for a larger portion of time even as we ramp the chemical plant further, resulting in lower heat rate and better than previously assumed cost performance. We are very pleased with the outcome and congratulate our utilities, E&I, process controls and commissioning teams on the excellent job.

Summing up the above and assuming the continuation of current trends, we are expecting a strong quarter of concentrate production and at least 50% quarter-over-quarter NdPr oxide production growth in Q3 versus Q2. July results put us on this path.

With that, I will turn it back to Jim.

[James Litinsky, executive]

Thank you, Michael. Let's turn to Slide 9 with the recent shot of the magnetics facility at dusk. To wrap up, this was undoubtedly our worst financial performance quarter as a public company. I hope I have always been clear that these kinds of quarters can happen once in a while. But as I said earlier, beyond the surface results, we made a substantial amount of progress. Our team is spectacular and relentless.

Notwithstanding MP's unwavering nature, pricing conditions remain outside our control. We do know that no producers are thriving at these prices, not even in China. These market conditions have now destroyed most of the hoped for projects from just a couple of years back. Despite the efforts and investments of many governments, Chinese control over the vast majority of the supply chain remains. Rare earths, therefore, continue to be at the center of a highly charged geopolitical environment.

In June, China tightened regulations over its domestic industry. Meanwhile, in the West, leaders pursued new protective measures of their own. And with an election season in full swing, the criticality of our supply chain is one of the very few things upon which politicians in Washington agree.

How this shakes out over a quarter or 2 is always uncertain, but what remains certain is the strategic irreplaceable value of the platform we are building at MP. In recent weeks, our team has turned a corner at Mountain Pass, both on cost structure and ramp, and we are now positioned to scale volumes and complete our evolution as a fully integrated producer of refined rare earths.

The timing aligns well with customer development activities. As I mentioned at the outset, we recently added another household name automaker to our growing client list. Between this new agreement and new and expanded agreements tied to our Sumitomo distributorship, a significant portion of our anticipated NdPr production at full capacity is now committed. With our products now qualified by some of the most scrupulous end use manufacturers and magnet makers outside of China, MP's position as the American champion is now cemented.

Our downstream magnetics business is approaching a similar inflection point, and later this year, we'll return large-scale rare earth metal production to the United States for the first time in many decades. In July, Michael and I celebrated the seventh anniversary of the acquisition of the Mountain Pass Mine and the founding of MP Materials. We are incredibly proud of the team we've built, the progress we have made and even more excited about the future. In a geopolitically charged, increasingly electrified world with billions of AI-enabled robots, whether on wheels or legs, MP's products, technology and platform matters. I believe our long-term success is necessary and inevitable.

With that, we're happy to take your questions. Operator?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is from the line of David Deckelbaum of TD Cowen.

[David Deckelbaum, analyst]

I'm glad to see you guys put this quarter behind you. I'm curious, Michael, if you can talk a little bit about just with this first Upstream 60K milestone with the pilot testing around flotation. That test, I think, is anticipated to begin this quarter, in the third quarter. How do we think about that in relation to the impact on your current operations?

[Michael Rosenthal, executive]

Thanks for the question. In terms of this initial test, we don't expect it to have any material impact on the operation. We'll be running a midstream through this equipment to see the performance, but we do expect it to ultimately lead to additive results even as a pilot, and then we can look to scale that if the results are successful. We've already tried similar equipment, slightly smaller scale and been very pleased with the results.

The grinding circuit investment that I mentioned is slightly bigger. It does have the potential for more temporary interference with the current operation. But like I said, very excited about that one, particularly next year.

[David Deckelbaum, analyst]

I appreciate the color. Ryan, I'm curious just as we kind of navigate this year, weak prices, I think you guys highlighted still a robust cash position even with the downtime this quarter. Just talking about, I think the $150 million or so of prepayment and I guess, some tax receipts that you anticipate, can you just kind of rehash the time line and the conditions that you have to meet in order to receive those payments?

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Yes, sure, David, happy to. As you saw this quarter, we received the first $50 million of that $150 million set of prepayments for the downstream business. The way to think about the upcoming $100 million is that is unlocked by further operational progress on the downstream business as we move towards commercial production of metal in Fort Worth and continue to build up our metal-making capabilities to support magnet making there. And so we expect to receive the totality of that over the next 12 months.

In terms of the incremental dollars that we flagged that are part of the various tax credits that we intend to receive, you saw actually in Q4 of last year a receivable of nearly $20 million, which relates to a 45X tax credit, which we expect to receive in the not-too-distant future here upon filing of our 2023 tax return. So that's a pretty near-term receipt.

The other elements of 45X relate to the ongoing 45X credits that we'll earn via production over the course of this year and next. In addition to that, as we announced, I guess, it was last quarter, is the $58.5 million of 48C tax credit for our investment in Fort Worth. We expect to likely receive about $30 million of that in cash next year. And the remainder of that is also available for us to monetize in a variety of different fashions earlier in the 2025 time frame or we can sort of allow that to play out over a longer period of time. But suffice to say, we've got a lot of opportunity to continue to support really healthy liquidity and the balance sheet as we invest here.

[Operator]

Our next question today is from the line of Laurence Alexander of Jefferies.

[Kevin Estok, analyst]

This is Kevin Estok on for Laurence. I'm not sure if you can answer the specifics around this, but I guess I just wanted to get a sense of maybe the size of the commitment that you have with the automaker that you announced today or maybe the length of time of the agreement. And maybe the same for the Department of Defense supply contracts. I mean just any specifics that you can offer would be helpful.

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Yes, sure. It's Ryan. I'll take that. In terms of the OEM commitment, that is a multiyear commitment with deliveries starting this year and ramping through '25 in the following year. We expect over the medium term that this commitment will represent a double-digit percentage of our total targeted output. So it's a pretty significant commitment for us, which we're very excited about.

And I think stepping back and taking both this commitment and the DoD purchase agreement in context, which I'll give you some details about in a moment, I think it really is emblematic of some of the comments that Jim made about the importance of what we're doing. I think rewinding to many, many years ago when we started on this mission, the thought that a global automotive OEM would be reaching all the way upstream to directly make this type of commitment was unheard of. And so I think that, that speaks to the progress that we've made both as MP and the increasing importance of our industry and our -- and what we produce.

The DoD agreement is a pretty modest agreement. So that was announced by them as well. It's about $11 million commitment from them for the National Defense stockpile but again, emblematic of continued support from Department of Defense, which we're very happy to see.

[Kevin Estok, analyst]

Yes, sure. Great. I appreciate that. And I guess my last question, I guess, in terms of the Chinese economy and the weakness there, possible stimulus, some puts and takes and obviously there's a flow-through into pricing, I guess, just curious to get what your guys' take on the economy. Maybe your outlook in the Chinese economy would be helpful.

[James Litinsky, executive]

Sure. Yes. So the Chinese economy is still pretty challenged. I think we've been seeing that writ large around earnings season this year across corporate America. We see that to property. Everything related to it is very weak. It's really just an overall negative environment with respect to industrial production and consumer spending. So we don't really have any different views than sort of what you've been hearing around the board with respect to what's going on in China.

I would say, though, as it relates to underlying NdPr demand, anecdotally, we do see Chinese industry growing abroad particularly in the global South in sort of South America, sub-Saharan Africa. So when you think about sort of the pace of what's happening in the Chinese economy, I would say that one mitigant is that Chinese industry is sort of attempting to make up for that with growth around the world, particularly in our space.

And so I do think that -- and again, as you know, I always try to caveat these answers with respect to commodity prices. We don't know. But I do think that in the medium to long term, the things that we're seeing continue to show that the medium- and long-term demand picture is very bright from China all the way around the world.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Matt Summerville of D.A. Davidson.

[Matt Summerville, analyst]

Couple of questions. Just back to -- Jim, I'd like to just pick your brain a little bit. What was sort of the criteria you used to make the strategic decision to align yourself with this particular automotive OEM for this agreement? And to Ryan's comment, double digits can mean a lot. Is there a way that you can maybe kind of narrow that down a bit? And more so also curious as to whether or not this is causing -- panic may be too strong of a word but causing other OEMs to come knocking on the door, so to speak, or lining up at the door to try and get in.

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Sure, Matt. I'll -- I'm going to steal that one from Jim quickly. Just -- you're right. Double digits is pretty broad. I can narrow that down to, say, low double digits, and obviously, we want to respect our customers' wishes and not get into specific details on any individual contract.

But I think that as we look around the world, we certainly are seeing a lot of interest in our commodity as I mentioned, and I think that what we are most focused on is maximizing the realized price that we receive for a product that we believe is incredibly important. And obviously, as we look at contract structure, pricing and all those things go together, we are going to prioritize customers that are thoughtful over the long term and are looking at this as partners.

And so that's certainly what we did with General Motors with the downstream business. That's absolutely what we're doing with other OEM partners on the midstream business. And so it's something that we're certainly very pleased about.

In terms of other automakers panicking, I wouldn't put it quite a panic at this point, but certainly, there's a whole host of things that we've seen over the course of the last several months that have really, I think, reenergized despite all of the headlines and sort of the Wall Street malaise on the electric vehicle trend. We've seen a lot of activity.

Certainly, the tariff announcement by the current administration, that maybe caused a little bit of -- maybe you could call it panic in terms of automakers really being interested in what we're doing from the magnetic side. But overall, we're really pleased to continue to build up our book of customers with blue chip automakers.

[Matt Summerville, analyst]

And then maybe for Michael, is there any way to kind of talk about -- based on the progress you're seeing or you saw in Q2, where you're tracking thus far in Q3 and your goal relative to that 50% production output increase of NdPr oxide, is there any way to talk about where your -- you hope to exit the year on a run rate basis in terms of NdPr production?

[Michael Rosenthal, executive]

It's still early, so it's hard to give a clear answer on that, and I'd rather not. But I would say that whereas in the past, we saw greater bottlenecks to production, we're now really working on optimizing and balancing the throughput and -- sorry, availability of equipment and getting that up and then pushing the throughput further. And whereas in the past, we may have seen more bottlenecks to availability, those are being released, and we expect to see significant improvement. And I stated that July puts us on that path with the 50% growth. It's probably where I'll leave it, but I do believe there's significant opportunity for continued growth in the fourth quarter. Jim, Ryan, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Yes, the one thing I'd add is, I think, the reason that you're probably sensing a little bit of a shift in tone from us on this is, I think, where we've progressed on understanding and getting our arms around the various moving pieces on incremental variable costs. We're sort of at the point, from a cost structure perspective in the midstream business, where getting to our targeted cost structure at this point is more a denominator issue. So this is more about pushing forward on our volume ramp will effectively have the cost structure take care of itself.

And so obviously Michael talked through some of the steps along the way, but we're very, very pleased to see that progress. And so I think that enables us to be even more tactical in how we approach the ramp here over the course of the year. And so as Michael said, it's early to give specific numbers on volume because there are so many different ways to get to a particular volume number. We want to get there in the most efficient way possible, which is consistent with what we've told you over the last couple of quarters.

[James Litinsky, executive]

And then I'll just add since -- to do the trifecta here, so you hear from all 3 of us on this 1. I think, obviously, this tough quarter numbers aside, to see the scale of this ramp happening in the -- ordinarily, if you just sort of look at our industry or similar industries, when you're ramping up a multibillion-dollar refinery, these things take time. And ordinarily, if you were looking at this with respect to another business that might not have an existing operation within it, you'd obviously see numbers and ramp and you wouldn't think much of it.

And so the fact that the scale of this ramp is sort of happening as impressively as it is with Michael and the team at Mountain Pass, I think, is I'm very pleased of what's happening out there. And I really do think, again, tough quarters number aside, and obviously, we have to keep executing. But this is a really, really impressive ramp that is happening. And obviously, hopefully, we expect that to remain the case throughout the rest of the year.

[Operator]

The next question today is from the line of George Gianarikas of Canaccord Genuity.

[George Gianarikas, analyst]

I guess I just want to start with -- I was wondering if the song choice was intentional during the waiting period. I assume that -- I'm old enough to know what it was, and hopefully, things do get only -- only do get better. So I guess first question...

[James Litinsky, executive]

Well, I'll take that real quick. Just so you know, that's -- I appreciate you recognizing the song. That is a song about resilience and powering forward. And so we're very methodical about our song selection, as you know, every quarter. So I think one of these days, we'll have to put together a Spotify list of all of our pre-quarter song, so you have them in one place. But that was a deliberate selection.

[George Gianarikas, analyst]

Nice. Nice. So maybe to focus on the OEM decision for oxide, I'm curious as to what -- if you're the ones who drove the decision around oxide sales versus magnet sales. Or was that something that the OEM chose?

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Sure, George. It's Ryan. That's something that is sort of mutual, I would say. The reality, though, is that with our current design capacity in Fort Worth, we're fully committed there at this point. And so to bring another significant automotive OEM on would entail incremental capital investment there, which is something that we do look very hard at, but obviously, our focus at this point is delivering for GM.

I think the thing to think about is the size of our upstream business, at least for the near and medium term is many, many multiples of the size of the downstream business. And so what we're focused on is ensuring, as I said, aligning ourselves with partners that may be long-term partners across all pieces of the business over the course of time. But certainly, we need to prioritize given we've done a great job on the downstream in terms of sales. We need to prioritize continuing to push forward and align with the right partners on the midstream.

[George Gianarikas, analyst]

Right. And do you know per chance who will be making the magnets for that OEM partner?

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

I wouldn't want to comment specifically. I think what I'd say about that in general, though, is we have seen some continued development in the market for ex-China magnet production in broader Southeast Asia. And so that opens up opportunities for us both to sell directly to those existing and future magnet makers as well as, of course, these types of agreements where we're providing the material directly to the end customer.

[George Gianarikas, analyst]

Maybe as a last question, someone asked a previous question around the state of Chinese demand. But I'm curious if you could share your thoughts around Chinese supply. Clearly, some of the major refiners are losing money at current levels. I'm just curious as to, Jim, what your thoughts are on the sustainability of that and whether or not we could see a little bit of a supply -- at least less growth or a supply reduction going forward? What are your thoughts on what exactly is happening there?

[James Litinsky, executive]

Sure. Sure. Well, with my usual caveat that it is always very difficult to read the tea leaves in China, what I would say is that it's very clear that there's losses and I think, there's a struggle in the supply chain there because nobody is doing well in this environment with prices where they are. That is very clear.

I do think that there were some recent headlines about China cracking down on illegal production, and I think that there's intent of the government to continue with, frankly, what's been going on for the last few years to crack down on illegal behavior kind of inside and outside the country. And I do think that when you think about sort of having a fully burdened cost of production, when you get a lot of that out, that is constructive for pricing and confidence and frankly, better for the environment. And so I think in the backdrop of what is clearly a challenged macro environment, there are a lot of good trends that suggest that when we sort of see the up cycle that it should be good.

And then lastly and just kind of going back to what I said earlier, we do continue to see substantial international investment from major Chinese downstream producers. I think we don't see those -- we're -- in the U.S., we see a lot of headlines, obviously, about our OEMs and our market. But let's not forget, obviously, China is the largest auto market in the world, but then there's the rest of the world. And you're seeing real penetration there from the Chinese OEMs and announcements around factories and localized production.

And so I do think when we think about the upstream supply, the Chinese industry has to continue to supply its producers going around the world but at some point that you do sort of cross that threshold where they're not going to want to have big upstream losses to be supplying local competitors sitting next to them in factories that they have. So I do think, again, with the -- always the caveat that nobody knows about prices, I do think that the pendulum had -- which obviously was very excited a couple of years ago, one way, has swung too far the other way, and it should recover at some point.

[Operator]

Our next question today is from the line of Lawrence Winder of Bank of America Merrill.

[Lawson Winder, analyst]

It's Lawson Winder at Bank of America. I wanted to ask -- just get your thoughts on the magnetics business and with commercial production being targeted for the end of this year. How do you think about that becoming EBITDA positive? Is that something that will happen this year? Or do we think about that happening in '25? And then what's the ramp on the EBITDA contribution from the magnetics business?

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Sure. This is Ryan. I'll take that. We do expect once we are producing products in the downstream business. And just to clarify in terms of the production targets, we aim to be in production with precursor products with metal at the end of this year. We're still targeting production of magnets in -- at the end of 2025.

But in the downstream business, when we do start production, and so I think the fair read-through is, for 2025, we absolutely do expect a positive EBITDA contribution from that business nearly immediately as we bring it on. Certainly, we've been investing in that business over the last several years and several quarters, and you've seen within some of our G&A and R&D type of line items on the P&L increased investments there. But we do expect as we have -- as we start making commercial product there to be both gross profit and nicely EBITDA positive in that business.

In terms of your question on ramp and timing, we haven't gotten into specific details there. As you'd imagine, with any type of launch of a new product and new process, not too dissimilar to the midstream operation, it will take time to reach full targeted throughput. And so we expect to embark on that very methodically as well. And so that will be, of course, reaching our targeted throughput of 1,000 tons of NdFeB magnets, will be over a multiyear period.

[James Litinsky, executive]

And I would just add -- let me just add, particularly given -- I think given our tough quarter that hopefully is now behind us after this call, but as a reminder, given that question that when we think about Fort Worth, a little over 2 years ago, that was a grassy field, and this is a highly complex product. And so the team has been executing really well. And to think that now we're in this place where, yes, we're going to be EBITDA positive so quickly, building something from scratch going into a business that is brand new for us and frankly, the West is really remarkable. So we're moving as quickly as we can on that front.

[Lawson Winder, analyst]

Yes. Great points, Jim. And then also thinking about 2025 from a CapEx point of view. Obviously, it's early in. I know you guys probably aren't prepared to provide specific guidance. But just directionally thinking about what you provided for guidance for '24, can you perhaps speak to the rough magnitude and direction of the CapEx move sort of like '24 to '25?

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Yes. I think it's early for us to get into any sort of 2025 discussion. Obviously, as you would expect, we are laser focused on return on invested capital and ensuring that we've got a robust and healthy balance sheet. But at this point, it's early to talk about '25. We're halfway through '24, and you've seen our results from a capital deployment perspective there. And what I would say is that we gave a range of $200 million to $250 million in CapEx for 2024 and just looking at the progress to date, we're likely coming in at the low end of that certainly with our focus on trying to be as capital efficient as possible in the current pricing environment.

[Operator]

Our next question today is from the line of Bill Peterson of JPMorgan.

[William Peterson, analyst]

Thanks for providing all the details. A few questions. So first, coming to the -- back to the magnet discussion. So you discussed commissioning the prototype production. I guess can you provide additional color on the progress thus far? Have you been able to produce any material that are meeting any sort of initial customer specifications or expectations? And then maybe perhaps you could shed some light on the next steps for the next few quarters in terms of optimizing performance in the manufacturing scale up.

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Sure. I'll try to give you some color there. I think I would split the discussion on progress and process development into a conversation around metal versus a conversation around magnets. We discussed, I think it was last quarter or the quarter before, a successful commercial-scale pilot of our metal making technology and equipment in a pilot facility. That is what we're bringing to bear in the Dallas-Fort Worth facility by the end of this year. And so we feel very good about that given the fact that we've sort of proven out our approach to that.

As it relates to magnet specifically, I think the beauty of building this business from scratch is that we've been able to engage with our customer, I think, in a very thoughtful way to think about commercialization of this from the very get-go. And so from our perspective, thinking about the types of magnets that will produce the mix of magnets, the number of SKUs, the performance characteristics, et cetera, and we've been focused on ensuring that we are biting off what we expect to be able to chew here in the near term.

And so we are absolutely not approaching this from the perspective of taking on 100 different SKUs. We're thinking about this absolutely from being able to commercialize rapidly. What we've seen from the pilot production facility so far is -- and again, I don't think we wanted to pat ourselves on the back too much on this, but we have gone from metal to a finished magnet at performance characteristics that we're pretty happy with already in this plant.

And so when we talk about being in production with magnets at the end of 2025, we get this question a lot, is how are you going to be able to do that. Are you going to be beating spec? And so if we're already making magnets at the pilot plant, clearly, we're working on dialing in all of those processes or process development and technology starting now through the end of next year to be sure that we're ready to produce a commercial scale for GM.

It's not lost on us that the automotive supply chain is not the easiest to qualify into. And so that also explains part of the significant hiring that we've had down in Fort Worth to ensure that we're ready for qualification, PPAP, et cetera.

[William Peterson, analyst]

Next question is on robotics. And I know -- I think your entry song last quarter was around robotics. But you have discussed on a few quarters of this being an area for growth. But I guess have you begun direct discussions with any companies in the robotics value chain or magnet suppliers in that space? I guess thinking about potential supply agreements given you spoke to the OEM one earlier and you also spoke earlier about some of your -- I guess, a large chunk of your volumes are going to eventually be spoken for. Just thoughts around what could happen in that space.

[James Litinsky, executive]

Sure. And great question. I spend a lot of time thinking about this because as we look around at all of the headlines and investment that are going into AI or -- and now in robotics, what they call physical AI, there's no question that there's a lot of excitement in this area. And so we expect this to be sort of a game changer demand stream.

Obviously -- and I hope I've sort of said this thoughtfully the last couple of quarters when we've discussed this, obviously, this is a few years down the line as far as something that is of scale. I mean -- but I would say that this is all happening so fast. The advancements that we're seeing out there, and obviously, you can follow a lot of this stuff yourself, it's pretty remarkable.

And without mentioning whether or not we've had discussions with a particular robotics company or a producer or whatever, certainly, you can look at who the leaders are and obviously sort of, I would say, one of the most notable leaders out there is -- that is talking about this is certainly Tesla with Optimus. And if -- we've seen discussion that Musk believes that, that will lead to $30 trillion of Tesla market cap and talking about 10 billion or 20 billion humanoid robots.

And what I would say is if you believe that, that is 1/10 directionally correct -- 1/20 directionally correct, it is a game changer for rare earth magnetics multiples to what EVs were because there's typically 2 to 5x the amount of rare earth magnet content in a humanoid robot than there would be in an EV. And then we're talking about many multiples of potential production.

Again, this is all sort of long term, but this is happening so fast that it's really exciting. But again, I caveat it with this is something that is a few years out.

[Operator]

And we have time for one last question today, which will come from the line of Benjamin Kallo of Baird.

[Davis Sunderland, analyst]

This is Davis Sunderland on for Ben. Just rewinding maybe all the way back to the beginning. Jim, in your prepared remarks, I think you talked about NdPr production costs coming down materially over the next couple of quarters. Just wondering if you or Michael could give some color as to what materially means, maybe if we should expect a linear decline or step changes. And anything you can say qualitatively about the levers for this cost improvement?

[James Litinsky, executive]

All right. I'm going to hand that one to my CFO. I'll tap out of that.

[Ryan Corbett, executive]

Yes. No, I'm happy to take it. We made a couple of comments on this. And I think the important thing to think about in terms of our progression on the cost structure is that we talked about, for the last couple of quarters, really getting our arms around the incremental variable costs and the items that we're driving that and ensuring that we were not ramping in the face of very suboptimal incremental variable costs.

The important thing that we found over the last quarter or so is really getting our arms around that. And so we're not where we want to be. But I sort of think about it as when we started to ramp the plan, it was sort of trying to figure out where the pins are. Now we know exactly where the pins are. We just need to knock them down.

And so we know what we need to execute on, and the team is working tirelessly to execute on them as it relates to the variable costs. And so what that really leaves us with is with the data that we've seen on a circuit-by-circuit basis over the last several months, what this becomes is a denominator game. This is really about ensuring that we are able to maintain the proper uptime and then as we sort of check that box, continue to push throughput and rinse and repeat and bring more denominator into that equation because that's going to be really what gets us to our targeted cost structure.

And so a lot of it really depends on exactly what the volumes are and exactly how we get there. And so it's tough to give you a ton of specifics other than in all the scenarios that we've modeled out, we absolutely, from what we see now, believe that as we drive volume towards our targeted throughput, we will get to our targeted cost structure. It's just a matter of us continuing to execute over the next several quarters.

[Operator]

And I would now like to hand the call back over to Mr. Litinsky for any final comments.

[James Litinsky, executive]

Yes. Thank you, and thank you, everyone. And I guess I will officially say good riddance to this Q2. And I would say for those of us who spend a lot of time on these things, I would say there are quarters that are -- there are bad quarters that are bad, and then there are bad quarters that have a lot of good in them. And I would put this in the latter category. We really responded extraordinarily well to some unanticipated downtime. And things are really humming, and we feel very good about the progress that we made last quarter that we're making this quarter, and we're excited to talk to you next quarter. So thanks, everyone.

[Operator]

Thank you. This will conclude the MP Materials Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call and Webcast. You may now disconnect your lines.