They already have infrastructure for moving the bulk material from the mines, but certainly not for extracting rare earth elements. It's an iron mine dating to

They already have infrastructure for moving the bulk material from the mines, but certainly not for extracting rare earth elements. It's an iron mine dating to pre-WWII so if they process the ore on site they're probably using either direct reduction or the newer electrolytic process. Neither of which have much in common with the liquid-liquid extraction process used for rare earth elements. It requires mixing the ore with an extractant (see D2EHPA or PC88A) into a nasty acidic slurry which is then separated into a aqueous layer containing the waste and a nonpolar solvent that strips the rare earth elements bound up with the extractant. All the different rare earth elements then have to be separated out of the nonpolar solvent. The process resembles uranium mining far more than iron mining.