Metallurgy studies are conducted as a part of doing the feasibility studies, with the study focus being about OPTIMIZING DESIGN OF EXTRACTION PROCESSES.
To borrow development money from a bank... you do have to show them the minerals are there... but, you also need to show them that they can be extracted profitably... using known processes.
You don't bother studying how best to extract the minerals... from rocks that don't already have known values in minerals to extract, that are worth the effort in trying to extract them.
SRSR's rocks do have known values in minerals... and we already know well enough what the numbers in niobium look like.
They didn't ship rocks back to China just to check that... which would be ridiculous...
That doesn't mean there can't be "issues" that might result, after the fact, from having done the work... but, it's not all that common or likely for projects to be proven "feasible" in every other way, except for some pop up "issue" in the separations that are a show stopper.
What we already know of SRSR's minerals... doesn't suggest there is going to be much that is unique in that regard, that would pose a particular risk... although it appears there may be some features in SRSR's rocks that might provide unique advantages in niobium product quality... and there is clearly upside potential in minerals other than niobium.
Considering minerals other than niobium ? We don't know much about what else might be there, so there is more or less a blank slate in that area, which might generate some nice surprises, when we're also able to consider those values in things other than niobium....
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