Probably a weird way of doing it, but hopefully they consider...

Probably a weird way of doing it, but hopefully they consider treating our whole site as basically two different projects. The high quality, low oxidized ore with meaningful fe ti content,, and then everything else..
Go with the simple processing plant that gaurantees 10 good years of processing (hell TMT proved 20 years with their simple flowsheet with 5+ having a saleable ilmenite product, probably 10 years after adding the combined southern blocks), and then 10 to 15 years down the track, debt paid, income and cash capital in the bank, alter and expand the plant to deal with all of the oxidized crap for the next 30 years to follow.
A) gives you another 10 years to optimize recoveries of the crap stuff.
B) technologies may emerge or evolve to better process it.
C) Vanadium market evolved so we have a better picture if VRFB's did create more demand or vanadium price still doesn't reflect a good opportunity for a complex expensive flow sheet to handle heavily oxidized ore.

Is that a better option than 50 years of blended ore and a lot of work and expense upfront just to ensure we can feed everything through the plant on day 1?

I'm not an expert so actually don't know if it's a better or even viable plan, but to me it is worth considering.