This may be relevant, from the July 2009 technical report :-

'Historical efforts to establish a mineral processing route for the Magpie rocks were not notably successful, with the exception of the Strategic-Udy process. Modern industrial techniques for treating titaniferous magnetite ores are now operating in several countries and can be studied for application to the Magpie rocks.
One modern processing route for titaniferous magnetite is based on the direct reduction of iron which involves pre-reduction of the magnetite in a kiln with admixed coal or similar reductant, followed by magnetic separation to recover iron, and then by further treatment to recover other commodities such as titanium and vanadium. A second method is smelting and selective-smelting of iron followed by selective leaching of the slag to recover titanium and vanadium.'

The Strategic-Udy process appears to have been in use in the 60s, by St Lawrence Steel in Quebec, a Niagara Falls company, another in Venezuela and others, but has been superceded by modern technique. It was developed in Canada with Quebec ore in mind.

It is probable that the use of an electric furnace has made this uneconomic, though the use of low grade reducing agents, such as cheap coal, gives some advantage over a blast furnace which requires expensive high grade metallurgic coal.