A lot of it is sent as partially processed ore, but two major reasons for that are: 1) a lot of these mines are very new and 2) Australia in particular is _very bad_ at secondary industries. We have a long history of just sending our minerals and raw food ingredients overseas to be processed and are lacking in expertise.

Here is a recent article about this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/business/australia-lithiu...