Ann: Maiden Vanadium Resource at Taranaki VTM Iron Sand Project, page-18

It is 500g/T not 50g, you may have missed a decimal point Finding the price of Vanadium this comes under seems rather difficult, with prices from $20-50 US that I have seen in different places. Eggers says $20-24/T which works out with the lowest prices of Vanadium I have seen per pound (500g is close to 1lb=450g).

Since I don't know the exact makeup of the material in the sand (particle size,etc) there are a few guesses here. But with the sands containing ~11% Fe2O3 iron oxide (literally rust) and 1% titanium about 85% of the stuff they pull up the pipe is going to be dumped back out another pipe which is close to the seabed to minimize dust plumes. As Eggers mentions in this document since so much of the material is returned the whole area will essentially "heal" itself over time due to the physics of sand particles. If you ever go diving you'll find nearly always flat ground when it comes to sandy areas because if a "hill" ever forms it will gradually spread out due to tidal and wave forces.

As to how it is separated internally in the ship I don't think there is much details on this. But if we assume its typical ocean sand getting the Iron Oxide and Titanium Dioxide out of that is not going to be such a hard process and properly designed should have high recovery rates as they have magnetic properties. I would imagine magnetic separation with a longer, but lower strength magnetic section to pull the iron out , then higher intensity for the remaining titanium such that you could sort them on the ship. It is possible within the confines of the ship at fairly high throughput. The vanadium.... not so sure about, it sounds the most tricky to me due to low concentrations.... but if the remaining material is mainly silica then the vanadium should be significantly heavier, and most people here probably have an idea about how sorting by weight is done.

So sucking up the sand, separating the wanted materials on ship, the waste going out the return pipe and being gently placed near its original location..... then shipping it to the closest port using the most efficient form of travel we have. It beats blowing up rocks and digging it out with huge machines when it comes to costs that's for sure.