"I think there will be nervous Canadian eyes on the WA1 grades and I'm researching CMOC as an important marker which WA1 may need to trump." I think not and hope not. If it comes down to WA1 having to squeeze Niobec for supply room, that means a price war, that means WA1 will probably go broke first because of the very large debt/interest bill that developers carry but older mines do not. WA1 don;t want a price war, they want CBMM to reduce their production as swing producer to make room for one more 'reasonable size' new entrant... maintaining the same FeNb prices. (discussion post below)
https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/68322130/single"Do you have any thoughts on the process feasibility and additional costs of including scandium?".. it's too early to be sure, but WA1 will be mining a supergene oxide deposit, scandium tends to accumulate in all sorts of phosphate minerals in the oxide zone, and WA1 will be trying to remove all the guange material to float off a clean Nb-concentrate where the money is. As a bi-product, Sc has to be concentrated in one specific mineral that can either be economically floated off by itself for processing, or as part of another economic bi-product mineral (eg apatite or the FeNb slag maybe) so it can be economically concentrated and recovered. It's possible but seems unlikley because too much of the Sc is likely to report to a mishmash of very fine gauge minerals that are not economic to treat and will end up in tailings. Never say never...
(20min delay)