Molycorp, Inc., whose subsidiary, Molycorp Minerals, LLC, is a U.S. rare earth producer, filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering (IPO) of its common stock to raise up to $350 million.
Molycorp said it expects to use the proceeds of the offering for the modernization and expansion of its Mountain Pass, California mining and production facility as well as for general corporate purposes.
In September Colorado-based Molycorp Minerals, announced plans to reopen its California mine, which shut down operation in the 1990’s when Chinese mines undercut the market. But in recent years, demand for rare earths has risen dramatically for use in many electronics and cleantech products. As China’s domestic manufacturing continues to grow in this area, the country said it will restrict exports of rare earth, thus bringing Molycorp’s California mine back into play.
Molycorp is currently producing finished Rare Earth products from
feedstocks that were stockpiled at the site from previous mining
campaigns, while it prepares to modernize its processing facilities and
restart active mining of fresh ore. The Company plans to be in full
production in the second half of 2012, when it expects to begin producing at
the rate of forty million pounds of finished Rare Earth products per
year.
In March, the company announced plans for an exploration program to be carried out in 2010 and 2011, to better delineate the existence and extent of various Bastnasite, Monazite and other Rare Earth bearing mineral deposits known to exist outside the current mining area on the Company’s California property.
According to the Company, it has been known for decades that Rare Earth mineralization occurs on other areas of its property in the form of various Rare Earth bearing carbonate and phosphate minerals, including both Bastnasite and Monazite. However, the need was never felt to further delineate the extent of other deposits on the property because of the mineral content in the primary Rare Earth ore body.
Although the primary ore body that has been mined at Mountain Pass for the last 57 years contains economically recoverable heavy Rare Earth elements such as Dysprosium and Terbium, and the Company intends to produce certain heavy Rare Earth products (including Dysprosium and Terbium) from that deposit, it is primarily a Bastnasite deposit. Recent preliminary testing has verified the existence of Monazite deposits on the property, which are known to contain a higher percentage of the heavy Rare Earth Elements. The Company’s preliminary testing has shown that the Dysprosium content in the Monazite deposits on the property is substantially higher than in the Bastnasite deposits.
Molycorp says that its Mountain Pass mine is home to more than 2 billion pounds of rare earth oxides (REOs), giving it an estimated lifetime of 30 years, according to a Greentech Media story.
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