Although molybdenum is fairly abundant and is found in a number of minerals, its commercial production is primarily from mineral molybdenite, MoS2.

The process involves

• Roasting the ore - to give molybdenum oxide.
  
• This is extracted from the ore using aqueous ammonia, whence it forms ammonium molybdate.
  
• Ammonium molybdate is then converted to ammonium dimolybdate which can be isolated as a solid.
  
• Heating this gives molybdenum trioxide, MoO3.
• Finally, the metal is produced by reduction using hydrogen.