Ann: IGO: to acquire Western Areas via board recommended scheme, page-117

If you dont know what "tolling" means then you are not experienced in the Ni industry.
Tolling is milling or smelting others ore.

The 50% Jinchuan offtake WSA has is shipped offshore but milled to the 16% concnetrate standard, that means its done either at WSAs small 0.6MTpa mill or at BHPs mill at Kambalda,
either way its tolled as WSA does not have 16% grades at their mines, their current average mine grades are at 2.9% so it requires expensive tolling from monopolist BHP.

Jinchuan has no mill, smelter or refinery in Australia and no PLANS to do so.
Only BHP has a smelter & refinery in Australia.
Who can toll mill smelt or refine WSA ore, NOT JINCHUAN!

So now we are getting somewhere as you are finally cottoning on to the basic facts that you keep ignoring & dissing me for.

If you think Jinchuan is not going to be affected by the china trade war and that it will offshore this Ni offtake forever, think again.
BHP has dibs on WSA ore and especially that cosmos ore next to its Mt Keith mill.

direct answers -
Do you think IGO might want to create their own downstream process?
A. NO. They have a large mill at Nova already & soon a small mill from WSA.
They happily use BHP tolling & refining 50% and 50% to Trafigura (a Jinchuan cover buyer) same as WSA does. They will move these mills to cosmos once Nova & FF run down next 3-6 years & use BHP Mt Keith also.

They have done significant studies on this.
A. AND after 10 years no plan to build anything

Again, when IGO owns WSA it is IGOs decision who to sell the concentrate to, not BHPs.
A. Who is left to sell to, what options do they have, Jinchuan is way more expensive trucking & shipping 84% dirt, your question wrongly implies a plethora or tolling/milling/refining options when only 3 exist.

Could IGO build their own downstream facility and keep the con themselves?
A. And after 10 years no building plan to build that nor any budget for its building, if IGO really wanted to smelt and refine why havent they started planning and building it then after Nova has operated now for 7 years? Why buy WSA for ore and not much more milling infrastructure?
Do you realise how much a Ni refinery costs to build in Australia, try $1B!
Why do you think there is only 1 in Australia now? And BHP owns it.

I think your research is simplistic, unrealistic and not well thought out long term.
Jinchuan are NOT the answer & I think will soon be cut out.
Hence why they have spent $300B in Indonesian NPI dirty slave mining & not in Australia
BHP are a monopoly, grin and bear it as everything else is pie in the sky speculation.