Titanium ore (specifically rutile an ilmenite) is extracted from...

Titanium ore (specifically rutile an ilmenite) is extracted from sand mining ..... there’s a lot of that in Oz and it’s generally cheaper than open cut or shaft sinking styles of mining. Australia also has huge reserves (from http://metalpedia.asianmetal.com/metal/titanium/resources&production.shtml estimated 24 million tonnes of TiO2 in the form of rutile and 160 million tonnes of TiO2 in the form of ilmenite. So reserves - not a problem

Oddly enough this has been recognised for a long time and being looked into by the CSIRO to find ways to better mine, refine and value add/produce this material see this from 2014 https://www.smh.com.au/technology/a...itanium-processing-csiro-20141212-125rvs.html. Titanium oxide is already mined and used for white paint pigments (titanium oxide) and other applications .... not just for the metal. So mining is already here, and will scale well.

Refining has always been expensive but there are new processes that are a lot cheaper coming online .... if you want to make powder as opposed to ingot/billet (which we do, TITOMIC uses powder)

See https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/02/...echnique-could-finally-make-titanium-cheaper/ from 2015.

Given this is an electric arc process it should also scale well (like aluminium or arc steel furnaces).

So, ramping up should pay off big time and being sand mining will not be a massive problem scaling.

Hope this helps

Shoe