Thursday, August 11, 2011

Molycorp: Today's Earnings Don't Really Matter (MCP)

The stock is up another $1.90 to $53.45 and up $4.15 since Tuesday's "Rare Earths: Molycorp Registers Some Stock (and why did Morgan Stanley pick up 8,439,008 shares?) MCP"

Sure, they'll probably beat the consensus but who cares?
What matters is that the company is another day closer to going into production.
Right now MCP is processing ore that had been stockpiled over the years the Mountain Pass mine was in operation.
New mining is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter.

For this quarter the price they received for their Lanthanum oxide was fixed under contract, more's the pity:



On July 28th the company and W.R. Grace, their current largest customer announced: 
Major Molycorp Rare Earth Supply Contract is Modified to Better Reflect Current Pricing
Molycorp, Inc. (NYSE: MCP), the Western hemisphere's only producer of rare earth oxides (REO) and the largest REO producer outside of China, today announced that one of its major supply contracts has been modified to allow for a higher maximum price to be paid to Molycorp for the lanthanum it manufactures in 2011 and 2012 at its current Mountain Pass, California operating facility for this customer.
“This contract modification will help ensure continuity of fair pricing given current market conditions, a goal to which both parties are committed.”
“The fundamental supply-and-demand situation for rare earths has changed dramatically in recent months," said Mark A. Smith, President and CEO of Molycorp. "This contract modification will help ensure continuity of fair pricing given current market conditions, a goal to which both parties are committed."...MORE
So it will be nice to beat the $0.40 a share on revenue of $98.59 million that the analysts expect but that's not the reason the stock is up.

We'll have more after the 4:30 EDT release