I was reading about CBMM and the family that created it. This is an interesting excerpt. Do you think the difficulty of the refining process and the fact it is a closely guarded secret would affect these small miners like SRSR and NIOBF ? If what they say is true it would be tough to compete with 'just' a mining operation.
CBMM’s techniques are such a closely-guarded secret that the Asian steelmakers that bought a stake -- including China’s Baosteel Group Corp. and Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp (5401). -- have never been allowed to carry out technical due diligence work.
“CBMM is not a mining company, but a technology company,” Carneiro said. The metal is not rare, he said. “What is rare is the market.”
The process is so complex and capital-intensive that, while there are 300 known niobium deposits around the world, there are only four working mines. It requires multiple refining stages to turn powdery brown earth with just 3 percent niobium content into an iron alloy with 66 percent purity, which is what global steelmakers buy.
