Molycorp Inc. is an American mining corporation headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado

Greenwood Village, Colorado

The city of Greenwood Village is a prominent suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area and a Home Rule Municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States...

. The corporation, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

, owns the Mountain Pass rare earth mine

Mountain Pass rare earth mine

The Mountain Pass rare earth mine is an open-pit mine of rare earth elements on the south flank of the Clark Mountain Range and just north of the unincorporated community of Mountain Pass, California, United States. The mine, owned by Molycorp Inc., once supplied most of the world's rare earth...

 in California, a currently inactive mine which it proposes to reopen in 2011.

The company’s principal asset is the Mountain Pass rare earth mine, which once supplied the majority of the world’s rare earth elements (REEs). The mine has attracted increased attention in recent years as rare earth elements have become increasingly in short supply. China, now the world’s leading supplier of REEs, has restricted production and exports since 2006.

In December 2010, Japanese firms Sumitomo

Sumitomo Corporation

Sumitomo Corporation is one of the largest worldwide trading company , and is a diversified corporation. Sumitomo is headquartered in the Harumi Island Triton Square Office Tower Y in Chūō, Tokyo, Japan...

 and Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi Corporation

is Japan's largest trading company , a member of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. Mitsubishi Corporation employs over 50,000 people and has seven business segments including finance, banking, energy, machinery, chemicals, food and more....

 signed agreements to be supplied with rare earths by Molycorp. US-based fluid catalytic cracking

Fluid catalytic cracking

Fluid catalytic cracking is the most important conversion process used in petroleum refineries. It is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils to more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products...

 (FCC) catalyst manufacturer W.R. Grace & Co.

W. R. Grace and Company

W. R. Grace and Company is a Columbia, Maryland, United States based chemical conglomerate.The company has two main divisions, Davison Chemicals and Performance Chemicals. The Davison unit makes chemical catalysts, refining catalysts, and silica-based products that let other companies make...

 similarly signed a supply agreement with Molycorp in November 2010. . Molycorp will supply W.R. Grace & Co. with an undisclosed amount of lanthanum

Lanthanum

Lanthanum is a chemical element with the symbol La and atomic number 57.Lanthanum is a silvery white metallic element that belongs to group 3 of the periodic table and is the first element of the lanthanide series. It is found in some rare-earth minerals, usually in combination with cerium and...

 and cerium

Cerium

Cerium is a chemical element with the symbol Ce and atomic number 58. It is a soft, silvery, ductile metal which easily oxidizes in air. Cerium was named after the dwarf planet . Cerium is the most abundant of the rare earth elements, making up about 0.0046% of the Earth's crust by weight...

, essential components for FCC catalyst manufacturing through 2015.

Molycorp additionally owns one of the few processing plants outside China that it had purchased in Estonia in 2011.