It wouldn't make much sense to do that...
Certainly they'd not ever ship "rocks" to China... which would just be penny and pound foolish.
It's "possible" that they could ship "concentrates" to China... but, even doing that would mean deliberately choosing to surrender a lot of the future value in the advantages that the rocks enable... much of which comes from "integrating" rather than from "distributing" process steps.
The reasons for that used to be, but aren't now, mostly driven by "market" issues. Now, it's far more likely that the decisions are going to be driven more by changing technology, first, and, in the case of Nemegosenda, by changing technology paired with unique aspects of the deposit, including scale, and "what's in the rocks"...
Easiest to see it, perhaps, by looking at in historical context of where the competition used to be, how it has changed, and where it is going. (It might take me more than a short paragraph to do that...)
In the past, there were others mining REE's, for instance, who would mine the stuff and then do only very basic separations, and then ship misch metal or even raw "REE concentrate" minerals to processors who would do all the "value added" work in the high value extraction steps and thus win most of the value in the potential as a result. REE concentrates aren't particularly valuable. Most of the value in them comes from doing the concentration and separations. So, if you mine REE concentrates, it's pretty much like any other basic, low value commodity mining operation... if your cost is $50 a ton to dig it up, and you sell it for $100 a ton... you're making some money. If you don't have the interest, the technical ability or the financial capacity to fund doing the concentration and separation steps yourself ? Selling dirt to someone else for a profit is still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. That was the basic structure of the industry, prior to the more recent inputs from the Chinese that have resulted in restructuring the industry by concentrating the mining with the processing. So, it used to be that Japan bought concentrates from others, and did a lot of the work in separations... because they were also the primary end users.
Probably don't need to rehash how and why that's changed, as China became almost the "sole source" supplier for concentrates, and then leveraged that into control of separations, and leveraged that into control over much of the primary industrial end use... pretty much while the rest of the world was cluelessly asleep at the switch. It should be obvious that entire set of changes didn't occur over night. (And, it should be obvious that there is no intrinsic right for others to expect to sustain a benefit from China's continuing the low value production of concentrates ?)
But, now, things HAVE changed...
The industry that used to be an afterthought at best is becoming critical... not just because of the change in the supply issues... but more because of the increasing demand, as new tech requires more and better REE products than we used to need when all we used them for was making cigarette lighter flints. And, niobium demand is growing much faster than REE demand... although with a couple of different issues in supply. Both are similarly relevant to discuss in the same basic market context.
Of course, its also just a fact that its pretty expensive to ship rocks or dirt around the globe just for the fun of it... and, as the markets become more competitive, you'll need to reduce those sorts of pointless costs as much as possible if you hope to remain competitive. It makes WAY more sense to mine the rocks, do the work in separations, and ship refined end products... from a single site... if you can.
Two reasons...
One is the cost of shipping... which adds up. If you mine rocks, ship them to a concentrator, concentrate them, ship them to a seperator, seperate them, ship them to a refiner, refine them to level A, ship them again to another processor who converts them for particular uses, refines them to level B, C, D, etc. Shipping cost is a part... but, so is the increment in the additive cost in profit taken at each step. As you move materials from "a hole in the ground, to "bulk" process and into wholesale channels, wholesale end uses and into retail end uses... you get an entire supply chain ecosystem. So, "market structure" is one reason.
It's a lot more efficient if you can enable doing all of that work in one place... and reduce the shipping costs and the incremental additions in profit at each step, while also simplifying and leveling the supply chain.
So, that's a basic market efficiency argument...
But, it's also true that when you do the work of concentration, separations, refinement and conversion... in that complex web of market interactions... imposing that step wise set of events the market structure imposes also means imposing particular processing requirements, when the processes applied are necessarily divided into those market driven increments. Considering the cost/benefit in the division in "technology" applied in doing the work, in the aggregate, is the other reason.
It doesn't necessarily make the most sense to have the steps in the structure in the distribution channels be what is determining the fact in the processes that you have to apply ?
So, that's what the "metallurgy" issue is about... is finding processes that are more efficient... that shift existing functions from the current processing scheme done through the distribution of materials (and processes) in the ecosystem back toward earlier elements in the chain, eliminating steps, reducing costs, and obviating the imposition of particular steps in processing by the division in the markets, to have the ability to apply the technology that makes the most sense... up front.
It's better if you can find more efficient ways of getting the work done "earlier" in the chain, without imposing duplication of incremental steps, and imposing more expensive processes at each step as a result...
Doing that... also shifts the value in the result of secondary processing from the middle men in the markets back toward the primary producers...
And, that has us back to "way more value in separations" than there is in the mining...
If you can come up with a process, or a set of process steps... that reduces that structure in the supply chain along with the cost elements in distribution in process steps that occurs in the ecosystem now ? You shift the "retail" value of the high value end products... back to the "primary producer"...
So, that's the $$$ motivation...
It's not a different argument than that in other markets. So, do you want to be a wheat farmer, and take what the market gives in the price for your product... or, do you want to be a vertically integrated supplier selling packaged flour to the retail markets... or, do you want to use your flour to make and sell pasta ? Only, there are WAY more valuable drivers behind vertical integration in production of niobium and REE...
Again, those are market arguments...
But, the rest is that the TECHNOLOGY also requires that...
The artificial divisions in a fragmented market... drive processes that are WAY more costly than integrated production will use.
Making sense of a more efficient application of the technology in getting the processing work done in fewer steps... means allowing the optimal development in the technology to determine the steps you apply in processing, instead of the existing market structure.
The LARGEST benefit... comes from application of technology that enables greater "value added" from fewer or less expensive steps.
So, that pairs the "market" arguments with the "technology" arguments... with a need for pushing process choices closer to the rock face in the mine...
What that leaves for us... is that the "technology" you apply and the cost of processing... still depends on what's in the rocks.
SRSR's rock are unique... requiring unique process...
I believe SRSR's rocks provide unique and important competitive advantages because of "what's in them" and "what's not". That probably wouldn't matter that much relative to competitors, still, if the scale of the potential wasn't "large"...
It makes sense to develop "generic" central processing to apply with multiple smaller input sources... when you benefit from aggregating a standardized input from multiple sources... wheat with X% protein and moisture... makes good pasta. Rocks with gold in them ? Toll milling makes sense... for some... within limits.
Separations from unique niobium/REE containing rocks ?
I don't see a short path from awareness of the market and technology drivers pushing the competition vertical, now, with awareness of the "unique" site based drivers in the rocks (including the scale of the deposit)... to making sense of developing site specific process flow... that you intend to conduct somewhere else ?
If someone else can explain how that would make a lick of sense... I'd love to be entertained by that argument...
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