"So when in the full process of gathering the niobium and other REEs will we know the rough outline of the full aggregate costs? "
That's what a feasibility study should provide... is a fairly complete outline of the known costs of production, and relative advantages apparent versus competitors costs.
"Is that what the metallurgy work will do?"
The metallurgy work is one component of a feasibility study... necessary to determine the costs of extraction and processing. In our case, it happens to be a particularly critical component. That's true, in part, because niobium extraction and processing costs are such a large component of total product cost. It's made more true for us, because having identified even a large potential advantage in cost relative to competitors, based on features in the rocks, still won't matter... if you don't have an optimized process flow that best enables extracting the full benefit of the potential that exists.
The competitive features resulting from "what's in the rocks" or from "what isn't in them"... is a fixed element depending on the rocks. What you do with that potential that maximizes the advantages in value the rocks enable... is more a competitive function of the technology applied, and process design.
"Are the Chinese then beginning metallurgy work now on the rocks?"
It seems they're beginning a new round of work to duplicate and/or complement, extend, or update the prior efforts that have been made. They are known to have different methods than others... so it may be useful for us to have them test those methods ?
Metallurgy work has been done before... first by the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, back in the 1950's. And, that prior work has been checked by others, and by SRSR. Since then, additional work has been done, some more recently by SRSR, and, most recently with that work being done by SRSR, in Canada, with funding from the HKHE partners...
We're still not privy to the results of that work... but it is reasonable to assume the new Chinese partners do have access to it, and that it is an element in sustaining their interest.
So, they're not exactly taking a "first look".
There have been a lot of changes in technology that have occurred since the 1950's... and technology improvements in the separations and purification processes are hotly competitive, currently. What was considered the "cutting edge" just two or three years ago... might be considered outdated, now, or soon to be outdated.
Again, I'd refer you to the recent articles quoting Jack Lifton as providing some insight on those sorts of ongoing developments.
A lot of what is happening in separations tech development now will likely be considered proprietary... but, its still worth noting that proprietary advantages in technology and processing can be duplicated... but, if your key advantage is dependent on some feature of your rocks, that others don't have... others might be harder pressed to duplicate or compete with that. As processes are tailored to address the rocks that you have, not all the work done addressing the issues in your process requirements... will necessarily be transferable to enable similar benefits for others.
Advancing technology has a couple of potential impacts...
Most obviously (to me, at least) some things that were considered to impose limits to extraction back in the 1950's might not be considered as imposing any similar limits now, and those same things might instead provide a source of unique advantage, now.
Another impact, not least among them, could be that competitors who've already funded a lot of infrastructure based on using existing processes or tech that is now a few years old... could be stuck with disadvantages they impose, or be forced into spending a lot more $$$ to try to remain competitive in the future.
Nemegosenda DOES appear to have advantages relative to others in terms of the relative disposition of their rocks creating major advantages in mining costs... relative to potential competitors.
Separations and processing costs are a much larger component of total product cost than mining... so finding unique advantages in pairing "the rocks" with processes that might lower the total cost of processing, even while providing a better quality product in the result ? That could be a vastly bigger deal in terms of total value, than having somewhat higher average grades, or somewhat lower mining costs (each of which Nemegosenda also appears it will have as advantages).
That potential clearly exists, here... for proving a three way competitive advantage... with better average grades, lower mining costs, and higher value products produced from lower cost process.
You still have to do the work to prove it...
It looks like they're getting on it...
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