Thanks for your post, I personally don't have the technical...

Thanks for your post, I personally don't have the technical expertise to disagree with your point of view, So I will accept your comments about the titanium and vanadium being a hindrance rather than a help. I will also accept the point you make re beach mining operations and ocean mining operations it makes sense to me.
There are operations that appear to be ocean mining for iron sand one to make mention of is Bluescope and the NZ operations, and I also take the point that Bluescope are obviously purchasing the magnetite produced from iron sand.

Amex Resources have an iron sands magnetite project that they are waiting to get off the ground, it appears to be in the main river mining and some land mining the Est. OPEX per ton is US$26/T FOB to produce a 58% Fe magnetite concentrate. There does not seem to be any mention of credits for vanadium or titanium. You would imagine that they would not have too much trouble in finding a market for their product.

Indo Mines has an iron sand operation pretty close to production. I am pretty sure that this operation is ocean or river related. The sand removed will be re-pumped back to the mined areas. Testing by the University of Jogjakarta has revealed that crop production
improvements up to 40% in the areas where the tails have been returned as compared to the original based sand. OPEX for the treatment of iron sand to produce a magnetite concentrate of 59% Fe is US$24.20/T.
The concentrate will then be converted to Pig Iron with a Fe in excess of 90%. Opex costs for the Pig Iron is US$79.15/T.
I understand that this should be a viable project. Overall CAPEX for the overall Project is US$158.3M.

I won't bore you with any more examples, not that there is not many more I could mention.
But overall I did get a lot out of your post so thank you for taking the time to do so. If you would like to continue this discussion I would be happy to communicate by email if you fell comfortable placing you hot mail address on H/C i will respond further.
Regards Ronraine.